Australia's Maritime Zones and Continental Shelf Limits, 2014 Edition

Australia's maritime boundaries, derived from Geoscience Australia's 2014 data, represent the territorial sea baseline and limits established under the Sea and Submerged Lands Act 1973. The map includes confirmed continental shelf limits from 2008 and shows unresolved areas, covering zones from Heard and McDonald Islands to Norfolk Island and from the Torres Strait to the Australian Antarctic Territory. It details boundary arrangements with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, France, and New Zealand.

Use Cases

• Visualizing maritime jurisdiction for legal and diplomatic purposes based on the described maritime zones and boundaries.
• Analyzing continental shelf claims for resource management based on the limits confirmed by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
• Referencing international maritime agreements based on the listed boundary arrangements with neighboring countries.
• Creating base maps for marine spatial planning based on the geographic extent from the Antarctic Territory to the Torres Strait.

Strengths

• Based on the authoritative Australian Maritime Boundaries (AMB) 2014 data from Geoscience Australia.
• Incorporates the 2008 confirmation of continental shelf limits by an international commission.
• Details specific maritime boundary arrangements with five neighboring countries or territories.

Limitations

• Data currency is from 2014; boundaries may have been updated since publication.
• The map is delivered in PDF format, which may limit direct machine-readability and analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Derived from Geoscience Australia's Australian Maritime Boundaries (AMB) 2014 digital data.

Time Range

Current as of 2014, with references to 2008 commission decisions.

Freshness

2014

Geography

Australia and its maritime zones, including external territories.