Regional Development Australia (RDA) 2014-15 Administrative Boundaries

Regional Development Australia (RDA) 2014-15 regions represent a national network of committees established by the Australian Government to enhance regional growth. The spatial data was built from the ABS LGA 2014 boundary dataset and is maintained by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. It includes updates for council amalgamations and deamalgamations, such as the addition of West Daly RC on 1 July 2014 and the deamalgamation of four Queensland councils on 1 January 2014.

Use Cases

• Mapping regional development initiatives based on the defined RDA committee boundaries.
• Analyzing changes in administrative boundaries over time based on notes about LGA amalgamations and deamalgamations.
• Integrating regional economic data with spatial boundaries for policy impact assessment.
• Visualizing the coverage of RDA committees, including the handling of external territories like Christmas Island.

Strengths

• Boundaries are explicitly built from the authoritative ABS LGA 2014 dataset.
• Includes detailed historical notes on boundary changes, such as the shift of Lord Howe Island representation in August 2011.
• Published under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license by a government department.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description notes that RDA regions in South Australia are not completely defined within LGA boundaries, which may affect spatial analysis consistency.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Built from ABS LGA 2014 boundaries and updated as new LGA boundaries are released or RDA boundaries move.

Time Range

2014-15 (December 2015 release)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-04 17:40:30.422174; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia, including states, territories, and external territories (e.g., Christmas Island, Cocos/Keeling Islands). Norfolk Island is explicitly excluded.