Historic Creek Alignments in 1855 Melbourne

1855 map data delineates former creek lines in Melbourne, digitized from the "Melbourne and its Suburbs" map compiled by James Kearney. The shapefile includes Elizabeth Street, Swanston Street, and Fitzroy Garden creek alignments based on historical descriptions.

Use Cases

• Overlay historic creek lines from the shapefile with modern urban infrastructure maps to analyze hydrological change.
• Use the digitized creek alignments for Elizabeth Street and Swanston Street in historical GIS modeling of pre-development landscapes.
• Integrate the Fitzroy Garden creek feature into studies of urban forest and water history within the City of Melbourne.

Strengths

• Data is derived from the authoritative 1855 map "Melbourne and its Suburbs" compiled by James Kearney.
• Includes specific historic creek alignments for Elizabeth Street, Swanston Street, and Fitzroy Garden.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats including SHP, JSON, CSV, and GEOJSON for interoperability.

Limitations

• Spatial accuracy is limited by the precision of the 1855 source map and subsequent digitization.
• Dataset scope is confined to three specific creek alignments mentioned in cited historical texts.
• No metadata on row count, sample data, or file size is provided to assess dataset scale.

Provenance

Source

Digitized from the 1855 map "Melbourne and its Suburbs" by James Kearney; alignments supplemented by historical texts from Presland (2009) and Burchett (1978).

Collection Method

Digitization of historic map features and integration of descriptive alignments from secondary sources.

Time Range

Historic, based on 1855 map and textual descriptions covering 1837-1977.

Freshness

Last updated March 20, 2026.

Geography

Melbourne, Australia, specifically Elizabeth Street, Swanston Street, and Fitzroy Garden areas.