Australia's Maritime Jurisdiction North of 25°S, Including Extended Continental Shelf

Australia's Maritime Jurisdiction Map Series includes this constituent map showing maritime zones north of approximately 25°S. The map depicts Australia's extended continental shelf approved by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in April 2008, treaties, and various maritime zones. Background imagery combines bathymetric data from Geoscience Australia (2009) and Smith & Sandwell (1997) with land imagery from NASA's Blue Marble.

Use Cases

• Visualizing maritime boundaries and exclusive economic zones based on the described treaty and continental shelf data.
• Analyzing the spatial extent of Australia's jurisdiction around northern territories like the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
• Creating base maps for marine spatial planning using the integrated bathymetric and topographic background layers.

Strengths

• Part of a standardized map series (28 constituent maps) with a known GeoCat identifier (71789).
• Integrates multiple authoritative data sources, including a 2009 9 arc-second bathymetry grid and a 1997 global topography grid.
• Includes legally defined features such as the extended continental shelf approved by the UN Commission in 2008.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative analysis.
• The primary downloadable format is a large-format PDF (3277mm x 1050mm) designed for plotting, which may not be machine-readable without conversion.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, via data.gov.au.

Collection Method

Cartographic compilation from treaty documents, continental shelf submissions, and geophysical surveys.

Time Range

The continental shelf boundary reflects the 2008 UNCLOS approval; background imagery sources date from 1997 and 2009.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-16 23:51:17.893190; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia's maritime jurisdiction north of approximately 25°S, including areas around Cocos (Keeling) Islands, west of Christmas Island, and contiguous northern continental waters.