Treaties - Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: International Treaty Boundaries

Geoscience Australia's 2020 digital representation of Australia's international maritime treaty boundaries. The dataset covers the entire Australian marine jurisdiction, from latitudes 8°S to 70°S and longitudes 39°E to 174°E, and includes updates such as the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste Maritime Boundaries Treaty. Data is provided in ESRI Geodatabase format and as a REST web service, with coordinates in the GDA94 datum.

Use Cases

• Mapping maritime jurisdictions for legal or policy analysis based on treaty-defined boundaries.
• Analyzing areas of overlapping jurisdiction, such as the revised zone from the 2018 Timor-Leste Treaty.
• Integrating harmonized maritime boundaries into Geographic Information Systems for coastal and marine planning.

Strengths

• Includes the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste Maritime Boundaries Treaty, indicating recent treaty updates.
• Coverage spans a vast geographical extent, approximately from 8°S to 70°S and 39°E to 174°E.
• Developed by Geoscience Australia in consultation with other Commonwealth agencies like the Attorney-General's Department.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description notes that in any inconsistency, the official treaty limits prevail over the digital data.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Delineation of Australia's domestic and international maritime limits and boundaries, resulting in a GIS data product.

Time Range

Epoch 2020.

Freshness

Currency is listed as June 2020, though the platform record was last updated in June 2026.

Geography

Australia's marine jurisdiction, including waters adjacent to the mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories.