Land Tenure

Land tenure falls under three groups:

• Public Lands which include State Crown and Commonwealth lands and incorporate property which is reserved, owned for public purposes or vacant;
• Private Lands which include freehold or Crown leasehold land. This makes up almost 75% of the Australian continent; and
• Indigenous Lands which include private leasehold land, freehold land and reserves held by, or on behalf of, Indigenous communities.

Geoscience Australia has two maps available which relate to land tenure:

• Public Lands of Australia 2004 interim digital map (PDF format)
• Australian Land Tenure 1993 paper map

Public Lands of Australia 2004 interim digital map (PDF format)

Download Public Lands 2004 Map [PDF | 2.7 Mb]

This map depicts Australia's public lands at 1:5 million scale. The public lands include State Crown lands and Commonwealth-owned lands which are 50 hectares or greater in area. These areas are broadly classified by primary reservation purpose to represent nature conservation, forestry, marine, water, mining, defence, vacant and other Crown land.

The Public Lands of Australia map is downloadable for free in PDF format. It caters for users requiring a national coverage of public lands as an image and can be printed on paper sizes ranging from A3 to A1. It is valuable in presenting the diverse categories, proportions and distribution of public land across Australia.

As the name implies, this map is an interim public lands map. Geoscience Australia may also release a 1:5 million NATMAP Public Lands of Australia paper map in 2005.

Please direct any corrections or feedback on this map to mapfeedback@ga.gov.au

Product Specifications

Coverage: Australia

Currency: 2004

Projection: Simple Conic on two standard parallels 18S and 36S

Medium: Digital free download

Format: PDF (Portable Document Format)

Forward Program: Reviewing options for supply as digital vector data and large format paper map

Australian Land Tenure 1993 paper map

This map shows public and private land tenure, including Indigenous land for the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:4.7 million.

The land tenure boundaries depicted on this map generally define broadly classified areas greater than 50 square kilometres. Indigenous land areas between 0.1 and 100 square kilometres are shown more comprehensively by symbols. The information on this map is complemented by statistical tables giving the total area of the land tenure categories for each State and Territory.

This map is also available as free vector GIS data.

Product Specifications

Coverage: Australia.

Currency: Mid 1993

Coordinates: Geographical

Datum: AGD66

Projection: Simple Conic on two standard parallels 18S and 36S

Medium: Printed map (flat and folded); Data - Free online and CD-ROM (fee applies)

Forward Program: See Public Lands 2004 PDF map above