Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: International Treaty Boundaries

June 2020 is the currency date for this digital representation of Australia's international maritime treaty boundaries, updated to include the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste treaty. The dataset covers Australia's entire marine jurisdiction, including waters adjacent to the mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories, spanning approximately 8°S to 70°S latitude and 39°E to 174°E longitude. It was published by Geoscience Australia in consultation with other Commonwealth Government agencies.

Use Cases

• Mapping maritime zones for legal and jurisdictional analysis based on treaty boundaries.
• Updating GIS systems with harmonized boundaries based on the 2018 Timor-Leste Treaty.
• Analyzing areas of overlapping jurisdiction for marine policy and planning.
• Providing authoritative reference data for maritime navigation and charting.

Strengths

• Includes the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste Maritime Boundaries Treaty.
• Coordinates are harmonized to WGS84 datum.
• Coverage includes all external territories and the entire Australian marine jurisdiction.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• In the event of inconsistency, the treaty text prevails over the digital data.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, in consultation with Attorney-General's Department, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Australian Hydrographic Office.

Collection Method

Delineation of maritime limits and boundaries as part of Geoscience Australia's primary role.

Time Range

Currency date June 2020.

Freshness

Currency date is June 2020.

Geography

Australia including all external territories, approximately 8°S to 70°S latitude and 39°E to 174°E longitude.