Long-Term Hierarchic Changes in Settlement Systems at Geographic ‘Edges’

Figures & data

Figure 1. Urban centres and localities (UCLs) in Northern Australia in 2021.

Table 1. Minimum definitions for townships/localities in commonwealth censuses.

Census	Minimum criteria for townships/localities^a	Boundary definition for and nomenclature of the smallest locality category^a	Number of observations (n)^b	Actual population of the smallest reported locality^b
1911	50 persons or more	No clearly defined boundaries for rural localities	75	50
1921	20 persons or more	same as in 1911	88	20
1933	20 persons or more	same as in 1911	99	21
1947	50 persons or more	Clearly defined boundaries are not always available for rural localities	81	50
1954	50 persons or more	Geographical coordinates for each locality are provided, but no clearly defined boundaries available for rural localities	85	50
1961	20 dwellings or more or 50 persons or more	Clearly defined boundaries are seldom available for other localities, boundaries are locally specified	93	38
1966	20 dwellings or more and 100 persons or more	Clear boundaries are defined for bounded non-urban towns (Linge criteria) but unbounded non-urban towns are listed as well	80	117
1971	200 persons or more	Clear boundaries are defined for bounded rural localities based on Linge criteria and its amendments	110	210
1976	200 persons or more	same as in 1971	137	217
1981	200 persons or more	same as in 1971	158	200
1986	200 persons or more	Rural locality, ASGC 1986, at least one whole collection district (CD)	174	159
1991	200 or more non-farm population, at least 40 occupied non-farm dwellings	Rural locality, ASGC 1991, at least one whole CD	190	201
1996	200 persons or more	Bounded locality, ASGC 1996, at least one whole CD	200	146
2001	200 persons or more	Bounded locality, ASGC 2001, at least one whole CD	233	200
2006	200 persons or more	Bounded locality, ASGC 2006, at least one whole CD	248	103
2011	200 persons or more	Bounded locality, ASGS 2011, at least one contiguous Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1)	287	109
2016	200 usual residents or more	Bounded locality, ASGS 2016, at least one contiguous SA1	299	118
2021	200 persons or more/180 persons or more if previously classified as locality or it is an Indigenous community	Locality, ASGS Edition 3, 2021, consist at least one contiguous SA1	300	93

^a Extract from Explanatory Notes for each census sourced from https://www.abs.gov.au/census.

^b Within Northern Australia as defined by the NAIF Act 2016.

ASGC – Australian Statistical Geographic Classification. ASGS – Australian Statistical Geographic Standard.

Figure 2. Rank-trajectories for settlements in the Northern Australia, 1856–2021.

Figure 3. Rank-trajectories for selected settlements by types.

Figure 4. Sums of mean absolute rank-shifts for towns of Northern Australia, 1911–2021.