Australia National Topographic Base Map with OpenStreetMap Roads

Geoscience Australia's National Base Map provides seamless topographic colour mapping for Australia and its external territories, sourced from GEODATA TOPO 250K, OpenStreetMap, and ACLUMP vegetation data. Road data beyond 1:100,000 scale is derived from OpenStreetMap, while suburbs are sourced from Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2018 and 2020. The topographic information was checked in 2008 using satellite imagery and supplemented in 2009, with limited field checking noted.

Use Cases

• Create regional or national cartographic visualizations based on the integrated topographic themes.
• Analyze land use and vegetation patterns based on the ACLUMP aggregated layer.
• Plan infrastructure or transport projects using the combined Geoscience Australia and OpenStreetMap road data.
• Study coastal and marine features using the bathymetry sourced from Natural Earth.

Strengths

• Covers Australia's entire mainland, outer islands, and external territories, including Antarctic territory.
• Integrates data from multiple authoritative sources: Geoscience Australia, OpenStreetMap, Australian Antarctic Division, and ACLUMP.
• Includes specific high-resolution mapping datasets for Christmas Island (1:30,000 scale) and Cocos (Keeling) Islands (1:25,000 scale).

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is limited; column-level documentation is absent, requiring manual inspection after download.
• The description notes limited field checking was undertaken, meaning some topographic information may not be accurate.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale projects.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Aggregated from multiple topographic mapping datasets and satellite imagery.

Time Range

Topographic information checked in 2008-2009; suburb data from 2018 and 2020.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 00:56:50.585598; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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