Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: Territorial Limits and Offshore Zones

Geoscience Australia's Australian Maritime Boundaries (AMB) 2020 data is a digital representation of Australia's domestic and international maritime limits and boundaries. The dataset includes territorial baselines, outer limits of maritime zones, and boundaries established by treaties, covering waters adjacent to the mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories. It was published in December 2020 in consultation with other Commonwealth Government agencies.

Use Cases

• Mapping legal maritime jurisdictions based on the defined territorial sea baselines and outer limits.
• Analyzing offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage areas under the OPGGSA 2006 based on the included limits.
• Visualizing international maritime boundaries determined by treaties with neighbouring countries.
• Supporting coastal zone management and planning based on the representation of state and territory coastal waters powers.

Strengths

• Published by the authoritative national agency Geoscience Australia in consultation with other government departments.
• Explicitly replaces a prior version (AMB2014a), indicating version control and updates.
• Covers a broad geographical extent from approximately 7°S to 70°S and 40°E to 175°E.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Delineation of legal maritime limits and boundaries under Australian legislation.

Time Range

Currency December 2020.

Freshness

Currency is December 2020; last metadata update was 2026-04-20.

Geography

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