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nswgeo

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

R package nswgeo by cidm-ph — release notes from GitHub.

github.com/cidm-ph/nswgeo ↗

NSW boundary data for R, refreshed as the official sources move

geospatialaustraliapublic-healthreference-datasfcidm-ph
◆Current state
nswgeo packages New South Wales geographic boundaries for R — suburbs, postcodes, local government areas, Primary Health Networks and Local Health Districts — as ready-to-plot sf datasets. The 0.6.0 release refreshes nearly all of them against new upstream sources, moving postcodes to 2021 ABS boundaries and taking LHD boundaries from a new official feed. It is maintained by cidm-ph alongside the mapping packages that consume it, including ggmapinset.
◆Where it's heading
Every release is dictated by an upstream release calendar rather than a roadmap: the 2023 ASGS, then 2024, then the 2021 ABS postcode boundaries and the new LHD source. That makes field-name churn the package's defining hazard — LGA_NAME_2021 to LGA_NAME_2023 to LGA_NAME_2024, and now lhd_name carrying a Local Health District suffix. The maintainer's habit of registering compatibility aliases through cartographer shows an awareness that these renames break downstream code silently.
◆Prediction
Expect the next release to track the following ASGS edition with another round of field renames, and any new content to stay in the health-geography area the package's users work in.

◆Recent moves

  1. 4mo ago

    Suburb, postcode, PHN and LHD boundaries all refreshed

    A broad data refresh: suburbs pulled from an ArcGIS server, postcodes rebuilt on 2021 ABS boundaries with changed processing, and PHN and LHD boundaries taken from new official sources. The catch is in the detail — lhd_name now carries a Local Health District suffix and the postcode-LHD concordance loses precision in FRAC_INCLUDED, so joins written against the old values need checking even though cartographer aliases cover the name lookups.

    View source ↗
  2. 6mo ago

    nswgeo 0.5.1

    A single fix restoring the missing CRS on the Lord Howe Island geometry in outline(). Narrow, though it would have broken any map combining that territory with the mainland.

    View source ↗
  3. 1y ago

    Updated to the 2024 ASGS release

    The annual statistical-geography update, moving to the 2024 ASGS and LGA shapefile, with the field renames that always accompany it. An ACT cut-out bug in outline() is fixed alongside.

    View source ↗
  4. 2y ago

    Territories, PHN maps and the outline() helper added

    The release that filled out the package's coverage: PHN, ACT, Jervis Bay Territory, Lord Howe Island and Greater Sydney maps, an outline() helper joining state boundaries with the territories, GDA2020 CRS helpers, and the postal-area to health-district concordance. Resolution also rises from 1 km to 750 m across most maps.

    View source ↗