National Base Map: Topographic Color Mapping for Australia and Territories

Australia's National Base Map provides seamless topographic color mapping for the entire country, including outer islands like Norfolk and Lord Howe, external territories such as Cocos (Keeling) and Christmas Islands, and the Australian Antarctic Territory. The service integrates data from Geoscience Australia, the Australian Antarctic Division, and OpenStreetMap, covering cultural, hydrography, marine, transport, vegetation, and relief themes. For mainland Australia, data beyond 1:100,000 scale is derived from the GEODATA TOPO 250K product, while data at 1:100,000 scale and finer comes from OpenStreetMap.

Use Cases

• Regional planning based on integrated cultural, transport, and hydrography themes.
• Environmental monitoring using aggregated vegetation layers from the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP).
• Territorial administration referencing data for external territories like Christmas Island (1:30,000 scale) and Cocos (Keeling) Islands (1:25,000 scale).
• Relief analysis and terrain modeling incorporating SRTM data acquired by NASA in February 2000.

Strengths

• Broad geographic coverage includes the Australian continent, outer islands, external territories, and the Australian Antarctic Territory.
• Multi-source integration combines authoritative data from Geoscience Australia, the Australian Antarctic Division, and community-sourced OpenStreetMap data.
• Includes data at specific scales, such as 1:30,000 for Christmas Island and 1:25,000 for Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Limitations

• Topographic information was primarily checked in 2008-2009 with limited field validation, so some features may not be accurate.
• Metadata for size, row count, license, and specific columns is unavailable across all platform entries.
• The 'last updated' dates (2026-05-05, 2026-04-04) are future-dated, suggesting potential metadata system errors regarding freshness.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, Australian Antarctic Division, OpenStreetMap contributors, Australian Bureau of Statistics (suburbs layer), ACLUMP (vegetation).

Collection Method

Compiled from multiple topographic mapping datasets, satellite imagery (checked 2008), and other supplemental sources (2009).

Time Range

Primary data acquisition and checking occurred around 2008-2009, with suburb data from 2018 and 2020, and SRTM data from February 2000.

Freshness

Last updated dates are listed as 2026-05-05 and 2026-04-04, but these are future dates relative to the current time, indicating a possible system error.

Geography

Australia, including outer islands (Norfolk, Lord Howe, Macquarie), external territories (Cocos (Keeling), Christmas, Heard and McDonald Islands), and the Australian Antarctic Territory.