NationalMap, together with data.gov.au, is an essential mechanism in the implementation of Australian Government's Open Data Policy, for open data publication, discovery and consumption by government, industry, research, community organisations and the general public.
NationalMap is an online map-based tool to allow easy access to spatial data from Australian government agencies and is based on a fully open architecture. When you access data through it, you are typically accessing the data directly from the government department or agency who are the custodians of that data.
NationalMap:
- provides easy access to authoritative and other spatial data to government, business and the public
- facilitates the opening of data by federal, state and local government bodies
- provides an open framework of geospatial data services that supports commercial and community innovation.
Data in the Catalogue
The datasets in the NationalMap application catalogue are sourced from Commonwealth Government Departments and Agencies, State, Territory and Local Governments and other organisations. Details about each data custodian and their contact details can be found in the catalogue, usually under "Data Custodian" or "Description".
NationalMap Software
The core components of NationalMap are Open Source Software (OSS) libraries available as Github projects. The core platform, TerriaJS, is available to assist with the development of other spatial data viewing applications. The platform was initially developed by Data61 for NationalMap, but has subsequently been used for other projects.
Additional Open Source Software Used
In developing NationalMap, Data61 has used open source software and contributed back to it. NationalMap leverages these excellent open source libraries:
The complete list is available with the NationalMap source code.
For more information, please visit NationalMap on Geoscience Australia.