Open data

Public datasets, civic technology, cultural collections and geospatial data.

Open data is information that anyone can access, use and share, released under a licence that says so.

You might be surprised by how much Australian data is freely available to you. To work with open data, you can download it as a file or you can use an API, which gives you the data as it changes.

There’s no single place all of it lives. Publishing is split across federal agencies, state and territory governments, universities, research bodies and volunteer-run community projects.

Government portals

Australian Government agencies are expected to make their non-sensitive data open by default. Every level of government publishes data, and each runs its own catalogue. The federal catalogue aggregates some state and local material, but not all of it, so it’s worth checking your state portal directly.

Australian Bureau of Statistics #

Publishes census data, along with the classifications and standards used to collect it. Custom data requests are available for a fee.

data.gov.au #

The central catalogue of Australian open government data. Alongside government data it lists publicly funded research data and datasets from private institutions held to be in the public interest.

Some state and local material is aggregated here, but each state and territory also runs its own portal.

Data.NSW #

Datasets published by New South Wales government agencies.

DataVic #

Datasets published by Victorian government agencies.

Data WA #

Datasets published by Western Australian government agencies.

Data.SA #

Datasets published by South Australian government agencies.

LISTdata #

Spatial, land and property datasets for Tasmania, managed by Land Tasmania.

Tasmania has no equivalent central portal for non-spatial data. That material sits on individual department sites, such as Libraries Tasmania and Mineral Resources Tasmania, or on national platforms.

Dateno #

Dateno is a search engine built specifically to run over open data sets around the world, and it includes some Australian datasets.

Civic tech

Civic tech projects take government information that that anyone can see but few can use, and republish it in a form people can actually work with.

GLAM

GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Open GLAM is a movement for free and open access to digital cultural heritage: the collections, catalogues and digitised material that these institutions hold.

GLAM Workbench #

A maintained catalogue of Australian GLAM data sources, built by Tim Sherratt. Includes Trove, the National Library of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial among many others.

Transport

Timetables, stop locations, real-time vehicle positions and road network data. Most Australian transport agencies publish in GTFS, an open standard for transit data.

Geospatial and mapping

Spatial data is any information with a location attached to it, describing where something is and what shape and size it takes. You use geographic information systems (GIS) and other specialised software to view and analyse it.

Elvis elevation and depth #

Australian elevation and bathymetry data, searchable by area of interest. Brings together open data from Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

OpenStreetMap Australian data sources #

A wiki page listing the open datasets that Australian OpenStreetMap contributors are permitted to use, along with the import catalogue and the state mapping projects.

Energy

Generation, demand, pricing and emissions data from Australia’s electricity grid.

APVI Solar Maps #

Rooftop solar data for Australia from the Australian Photovoltaic Institute.