Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: Territorial Limits and Jurisdictional Zones

Geoscience Australia's digital representation of Australia's territorial sea baselines and the outer limits of its maritime zones, including exclusive economic zones and treaty boundaries. The data covers the entire Australian marine jurisdiction from 7°S to 70°S latitude and 40°E to 175°E longitude, with a currency date of December 2020. It was developed in consultation with Commonwealth agencies like the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Use Cases

• Delineating offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage areas based on the limits referenced in the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006.
• Mapping Australia's international maritime boundaries and treaty limits with neighboring countries.
• Analyzing state and territory coastal waters jurisdiction under the Coastal Waters (State/Territory Powers) Act 1980.
• Visualizing the territorial sea baseline and the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone for maritime planning.

Strengths

• Official data product from Geoscience Australia, the primary authority for maritime boundary delineation.
• Explicitly states coordinates are in the GDA94 datum, which is functionally equivalent to WGS84.
• Covers a vast geographical extent, including all external territories.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• The data reflects coastline location based on source material available at the time of production, which may be outdated.
• Row count and detailed column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Digital delineation of legal limits established under Australian legislation and international treaties.

Time Range

Currency: December 2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 08:24:06.836512; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian marine jurisdiction, including mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories (approx. 7°S to 70°S, 40°E to 175°E).