User:Cassowary/Location in Australia

This article describes location in Australia. Unlike in some countries, local government has a very low salience in Australia. Although local government areas may be officially styled as “city” or (in some states) “town”, such words are understood as referring to the entire urbanised or metropolitan area, possibly including some of the surrounding countryside. Furthermore, local government areas do not feature on street addresses and are rarely used to describe locations. In this article, "city" and " town " will be used in their common Australian sense, i.e. without reference to local government boundaries unless otherwise specified. Other terms in this article may be used in a different sense from what an international audience may expect, but will be defined in place or shortly afterwards.

Suburbs, towns and rural districts are the chief means of identifying locations within a region in Australia, and are used both informally and in street addresses (taking the place of cities in American addresses, or post towns in British ones). As a rule, they are quite small, with postcodes frequently being shared between adjacent suburbs, towns or rural districts. Officially, they are collectively defined as bounded localities; informally, they may be grouped together as localities, although this may also apply to towns and rural districts in contrast to suburbs in urban environments, and has other uses described below. The three terms are used for bounded localities in the following situations:

• Suburbs are found within cities or metropolises; alternatively, a city is an agglomeration of suburbs. They are predominantly or entirely built-up. Aside from being found within cities or metropolises, unlike in other countries the term is unrestricted by location, land-use or local government status; dense, inner-urban, commercially-oriented localities are described as suburbs just the same as low-density, outer residential localities. Examples: North Melbourne, Coburg, Hoppers Crossing, Kangaroo Flat, Belmont.
• Towns have an urbanised settlement large enough to provide urban services for the surrounding area (i.e. including areas outside the locality), but not as large as a city . There will often be substantial rural areas surrounding the town, within the boundary of the locality, but they are not usually considered to be within the town per se. Aside from this possible rural/built-up dichotomy, it is generally not possible to divide a town into multiple separate communities (which would then be suburbs, and qualify the settlement as a city). Examples: Castlemaine (pop. 6797), Kyabram (pop. 7108), Camperdown (pop. 3541), Ouyen (pop. 1383), Wonthaggi (pop. 3995) and Kerang (pop. 3780).
• Rural districts are the remainder; they may contain small townships—i.e. settlements too small to be considered towns by Australian standards—or be entirely rural or undeveloped. Frequently this category is omitted (e.g. the form which asks you for your “Suburb/Town”). Examples with a township: Pyalong (pop. 269) and Talbot (pop. 330). Examples without a township: Ripplebrook and Hiawatha.
• Some bounded localities, generally considered suburbs or rural districts according to their location, are defined for special purposes. Examples: Melbourne Airport (which contains the Melbourne Airport and related facilities), Big Desert (which contains the Big Desert Wilderness Park) and Robinvale Irrigation District Section C.

However, individual localities are not officially classified as one or the other and no official action is necessary as a small township in a rural district develops into a town and ultimately the central suburb of a city.

Although the names and boundaries are declared by local councils, the names of bounded localities are always unique within in a state, and the names of streets are always unique within a bounded locality and they are recorded in a statewide registry of geographic names. Furthermore, localities often span multiple local government areas such as Bundoora in Melbourne, which is divided between the Cities of Darebin, Whittlesea and Banyule LGAs.

In addition, some areas are known by a name not used in postal addresses. These are sometimes called neighbourhoods or (ambiguously) localities; when officially declared by a local government, they are classified as unbounded localites. Many have not been declared, but are shown on maps and used by real estate agents just the same. Because many remain unofficial, the same name may be used in different parts of a state and use—even of official ones—is discouraged with varying success.

Official status

Although the placenames are now declared by local governments and recorded in state-based registers of geographic names, the current system only dates to the 1990s when the Intergovernmental Committee for Surveying and Mapping and the Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia decided to name and establish official boundaries for all localities. The registers contain more than just localities as described here, but also street names, local government areas, parks and gardens, hospitals, large shopping centres, sporting facilities amongst others, as well as historical and alternative names.

Although local councils are ultimately responsible for determining boundaries, they act in cooperation with emergency services and the Australia Post, and postcode boundaries are now closely related with locality boundaries.

The program of official naming has occasionally resulted in places being renamed to ensure they are unique. For instance, “Kingston” was the name of two towns in South Australia, but they have been renamed to “Kingston SE” (for “South East”, its location within the state) and “Kingston on Murray” (for the Murray River that flows through it). Similarly, there had been two streets named “Station Walk” in the suburb of Brighton in Victoria; to facilitate the emergency services, one has been renamed “Railway Walk”. Nevertheless, street names (and even street numbering) need not be unique within a local government area, only within a suburb. For instance, Melville Rd restarts its numbering at 1 when it crosses Moreland Rd, going from Brunswick West to Pascoe Vale South although it remains within the City of Moreland LGA.

Previously, the official status of suburbs and towns had varied, with many simply based on the communities surrounding current or former post offices, and (Australia Post-defined) postcode boundaries often taken to correspond to suburb boundaries.

See also

• Suburb for a US-centric discussion of the word “suburb” and the evolution of the concept in various countries, including (briefly) Australia.
• Town and Township for these conceptions in other countries
• Address (geography) for address standards in Australia and other countries.

External links

• Maps of all localities in Victoria
• Streets, towns and places directory. Includes list of all suburbs and localities in Western Australia
• Suburb and Postcode Perimeter Search for Australia
• Download PHP Perimeter Search with Geo Database of Australia for free.

References

Category:Subdivisions of Australia