NATMAP 1:250,000 scale legend

Feature Descriptions

• Roads
• Railways
• Road and Railway associated features
• Population centres
• Aircraft facilities
• Cultural features
• Relief
• Vegetation
• Hydography
• Offshore & Coastal features
• Boundaries

FEATURE CAPTURE GUIDE

In predominantly wet and/or heavily developed regions, features such as fences, windpumps, tanks and bores proliferate and therefore lose their significance as a feature at 1:250,000 scale and are not shown on maps that fall within the dark area in the diagram below. These features are identified in the legend explanation with an asterisk (*).

Map and Data Production

NATMAPs and their companion GIS digital data product, GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3 are produced in parallel. The digital data is the source for continuous revisions of map and data products as well as on-line products at 1:250 000 scale. Geo-referenced satellite imagery is used to plot the position of features, together with information from a wide variety of sources. All products have adopted the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA94) - for more information on GDA94 please refer to the Geocience Australia Geodesy & GPS pages.

Specifications

Full Specifications can be viewed on the Topographic Mapping pages on the Geoscience Australia website.

Names on the Map

Inclusion of names on the map does not imply approval by the relevant Geographic Names Board. The National Gazetteer is the primary source used on products. Refer to the Place Name Search on the Geoscience Australia website.

Map Reliability

1:250,000 scale NATMAPs are not field checked, which means that some included information may not be accurate or up to date. Many other sources of information, including recently captured satellite imagery, have been used to identify change in an effort to make the product a useful reference. The date which is shown in the map marginalia as the map reliablity date is the date of the latest imagery used during the production of the NATMAP.

Minimum Size Criteria

Certain types of features depicted on NATMAPs often have minimum size criteria applied. This is a generalisation technique which is applied to maintain map clarity.

Length and/or height criteria may apply to linear features such as levees or vertical features such as towers. This criteria will not apply to features that join two or more features in the same network at each end.

Area critiera may apply to area type features.

The minimum area indicated for polygon features is the minimum area for the whole feature regardless of how many maps it falls on. Likewise, for linear features the minimum length applies to the whole feature, not just that part of the feature which falls on the map.

Unless identified as an exception, or confirmed to be no longer in existence, all features sourced from previous data or printed maps will be included regardless of their compliance to size criteria stated in the specifications for the product. All additional features captured from any other source must comply with the size criteria as stated in the map specifications (these are listed below in the table).