Australian Regional Development Authority Boundaries for 2015-16

Australia's Regional Development Authority (RDA) administrative boundaries for the 2015-16 period, created by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. The dataset maps the national network of RDA committees, built from the ABS/PSMA Local Government Area (LGA) 2015 boundary dataset. It was published in April 2016.

Use Cases

• Analyze regional governance structures by mapping RDA committee jurisdictions against LGA boundaries.
• Study historical boundary changes, such as the reassignment of Lord Howe Island from RDA Northern Rivers to Mid North Coast in August 2011.
• Identify special administrative cases like the division of South Australia's Outback Communities Authority across three RDA regions.
• Map the inclusion of external territories, such as Christmas Island in RDA Mid West Gascoyne or Jervis Bay in RDA South Coast.

Strengths

• Built from the authoritative ABS/PSMA LGA 2015 boundary dataset.
• Documents specific historical boundary changes and administrative exceptions for each state and territory.

Limitations

• Dataset is temporally stale, representing the 2015-16 period and not reflecting subsequent boundary updates.
• Spatial definitions are inconsistent, with some RDA regions in South Australia based on older 2007 government region boundaries.

Provenance

Source

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts.

Collection Method

Spatial data created and maintained by the department, built from ABS/PSMA LGA boundaries and updated as new boundaries are released.

Time Range

2015-16 period, with notes on changes from 2011 and 2014.

Freshness

null

Geography

Australia, including states, territories, and external territories like Christmas Island and Jervis Bay.