Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: Territorial Sea Baselines and Jurisdictional Limits

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

Use Cases

• Delineating maritime zones for resource management based on the described limits under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006.
• Mapping territorial sea baselines and international boundaries for legal or diplomatic analysis based on treaty data.
• Visualizing jurisdictional areas for coastal planning and environmental regulation based on the described state and territory powers.

Strengths

• Data currency is explicitly stated as December 2020.
• Coverage is defined as the whole Australian marine jurisdiction, approximately between 7°S to 70°S and 40°E to 175°E.
• Coordinates are supplied in the GDA94 datum, which is noted as functionally equivalent to WGS84.

Limitations

• The description notes that in the event of an inconsistency between the AMB data and legislative limits, the latter prevails.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, in consultation with the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Australian Hydrographic Office.

Collection Method

Delineation of limits and boundaries under the Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973 and associated proclamations.

Time Range

Currency December 2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 05:37:57.785605; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia including all external territories, covering the Australian marine jurisdiction.