National Wards

Disclaimer

Geoscape Australia believes this publication to be correct at the time of printing and does not accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of the information herein. Readers should rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission of Geoscape Australia.

Overview

National Wards is a spatial representation of the gazetted ward districts, which are a subset of Local Government Area boundaries defined by State and Territory governments. National Wards represent distinct areas within a local government area that relate to the election of councillors for the related local government. National Wards aggregates the representations unique to each jurisdiction into a consistent seamless representation of the wards of Australia. Geoscape welcomes your feedback on the National Wards product. We also publish regular product development updates on our website ( www.geoscape.com.au ).

Release Summary

This product was released to customers on 17 August 2026 with data extracted on 10 August 2026.

• This release is a full national data population for Version 1.2 of the National Wards product, described by the National Wards Product Guide v1.2.

Any issues that have been identified for this release are described in the Issues section.

Change Notifications

Versioning Update (Effective June 2026)

Beginning June 2026, all data products will transition to a standardised versioning format: MAJOR-MINOR-EXTRACT (e.g., 004-000-001). This approach provides a clear and consistent structure, making it easier for users to identify product versions and understand update levels at a glance. The change is intended to improve transparency, reduce ambiguity, and support more efficient integration and usage of our data products.

Implementation of New Zip File Naming and Packaging Standards (Effective August 2026)

As part of ongoing improvements to product consistency and packaging standards, updates to zip file naming conventions and internal packaging structure will be implemented, starting in August 2026.

Zip File Naming

Two standard naming patterns will be used, depending on whether an extract contains spatial information:

• Spatial Tables:

{PRODUCT-NAME}_{RELEASE YYYYMM}_{REGION}_{CRS}_{FORMAT}_{VERSION MAJOR-MINOR-EXTRACT}.zip

• Aspatial (Insights) Tables:

{PRODUCT-NAME}_{RELEASE YYYYMM}_{REGION}_NODATUM_{FORMAT}_{VERSION MAJOR-MINOR-EXTRACT}.zip

Packaging Structure

From this release, we have updated the folder structure in product packages. Previously, we provided a contents.txt file and a number of internal folders. The .ZIP file packages now only contain data files. We have applied this change to simplify accessing the data.

Product File Changes

To align the naming of the Australia region product files with the state and territory files, an 'australia_' prefix has been added to the table and layer names.

• For example:

  May 2026 > August 2026

  file name: wards.gdb > australia_wards.gdb

  layer name: wards > australia_wards

• In GeoJSON, JSON and PSV files, date fields are now represented in YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. 2026-03-31) where previously they were provided in DD-MM-YYYY format (e.g. 31-03-2026).

These changes ensure consistent packaging across all products, reduce complexity, and support improved automation and user experience.

Updates

New and Retired

New

New wards records:

ward_pid	ward_name	lga_pid	state
waduk5n7G0sreId	Central Ward	lgaEsJ1Pq2m4muk	SA
wadgMih7gi2p03r	Port MacDonnell Ward	lgaEsJ1Pq2m4muk	SA
wadcFC0ex6fgPU9	Tarpeena Ward	lgaEsJ1Pq2m4muk	SA

'N/A' indicates that no records of this type exist

Retired

Retired wards records:

ward_pid	ward_name	lga_pid	state
wade39deebe1c4b	Central Ward	lga8bb4dae910ad	SA
wadc79b9aa53a49	Port MacDonnell Ward	lga8bb4dae910ad	SA
wada6a2667b814c	Tarpeena Ward	lga8bb4dae910ad	SA

'N/A' indicates that no records of this type exist

Spatial Changes

Spatial changes (area) greater than 1 km² are shown below:

ward_pid	ward_name	state	Difference_SQKM	Old_SQKM	New_SQKM
wad6a50178ee53c	Ward 2	SA	-2	24	22

'N/A' indicates that no records of this type exist

Other Updates

There were no other updates.

Issues

New Issues

No new issues.

Resolved Issues

No resolved issues to note.

Known Issues

Un-enclosed gaps between Wards in NT

There are two un-enclosed gaps present in the Wards data in NT. These gaps are not valid and do not represent rivers. Below, the un-enclosed gaps can be seen between polygons when they are dissolved together.

SA coastline generalisation for Central Ward

Jurisdictional changes to the coastline geometry have resulted in polygon generalisation for ‘Central Ward’ Ward in South Australia. These changes are related to boundary changes made to ‘The DC of Grant’ LGA. This has reduced the number of vertices in the polygons resulting in geometry differences and, in some scenarios, the creation of additional polygons for the LGA. Below is an example where a previous Admin Boundaries LGA outline (blue) can be seen compared to the new Local Government Area product representation (red area).

Geoscape is currently investigating this generalisation with the SA jurisdiction.

Future Considerations

This section outlines enhancements or changes under consideration, but not planned into a specific release. For further details on future initiatives, please contact Geoscape Support.

Annex A – Release Counts

Additional, retired and total National Wards counts and the percent change to the previous release have been listed in the table below.

TABLE	STATISTIC	ACT	NSW	NT	OT	QLD	SA	TAS	VIC	WA	TOTAL
wards	Additional	0	0	0	0	0	24	0	0	36	60
	Retired	0	0	0	0	0	24	0	0	36	60
	Updated	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	0	0	830	0	0	155	0	468	202	1,655
	% Change	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%