Australian Topographic Base Map Without Labels

Seamless topographic color mapping covers all of Australia, including external territories like Norfolk Island and the Australian Antarctic Territory. The map integrates data from Geoscience Australia, the Australian Antarctic Division, and OpenStreetMap, with vegetation layers from the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program. Topographic information was last checked using satellite imagery in 2008 and supplemented from other sources in 2009.

Use Cases

• Create custom labeled maps by overlaying the unlabeled basemap with proprietary cultural or hydrographic data layers.
• Analyze land cover changes by comparing the ACLUMP vegetation layer with more recent satellite imagery.
• Study coastal and marine topography using the integrated bathymetry data sourced from Natural Earth.
• Generate relief visualizations for the Australian continent and territories using the processed SRTM DEM data.
• Develop transportation network analyses by incorporating the OpenStreetMap-derived road data visible at scales beyond 1:100,000.

Strengths

• Covers the entire Australian continent and its external territories.
• Integrates data from multiple authoritative sources including Geoscience Australia and OpenStreetMap.
• Includes specialized topographic data for Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands at 1:30,000 and 1:25,000 scales respectively.

Limitations

• Limited field checking was undertaken, so some topographic information may not be accurate.
• The core topographic information was checked in 2008 and may be temporally stale for some applications.
• The SRTM DEM data, acquired in February 2000, is known to be noisy despite processing.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, Australian Antarctic Division, OpenStreetMap contributors, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Natural Earth.

Collection Method

Aggregated from multiple national mapping programs and open-source projects, with processing including stripe removal and void filling for SRTM data.

Time Range

Topographic data checked in 2008; SRTM data acquired February 2000; suburb layers from 2018 and 2020.

Freshness

The dataset record was last updated in April 2026, but the underlying topographic data is from 2008-2009.

Geography

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