Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: International Treaty Boundaries

June 2020 digital representation of Australia's international maritime treaty boundaries, updated to include the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste Treaty. The dataset was developed by Geoscience Australia in consultation with other Commonwealth Government agencies. It covers the entire Australian marine jurisdiction, from approximately 8°S to 70°S latitude and 39°E to 174°E longitude.

Use Cases

• Mapping maritime jurisdictions for legal and policy analysis based on treaty-defined boundaries.
• Analyzing overlapping maritime claims and areas of jurisdiction mentioned in the description.
• Integrating treaty boundaries with other marine spatial data for environmental or resource planning.
• Verifying digital boundary representations against official treaty texts as noted in the disclaimer.

Strengths

• Developed by the authoritative national agency, Geoscience Australia, in consultation with other government departments.
• Includes a specific update for the 2018 Australia Timor-Leste Maritime Boundaries Treaty.
• Provides geographic coordinates in the GDA94 datum, which is functionally equivalent to WGS84.
• Covers the full extent of Australia's marine jurisdiction, including external territories.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Delineation of maritime limits and boundaries, developed in consultation with the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Australian Hydrographic Office.

Time Range

Currency June 2020.

Freshness

Data currency is June 2020, with a platform last updated date of 2026-04-20.

Geography

Australia's marine jurisdiction, including waters adjacent to the mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories, approximately between 8°S to 70°S and 39°E to 174°E.