Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian places

The WikiProject on Australian places is a project aimed towards the standardisation of articles on the cities, towns and suburbs of Australia.

Articles maintained by this WikiProject are grouped in Category:WikiProject Australian places articles by using the place=yes parameter with the WP Australia template.

Usage:

Scope
This project applies to the eight capital cities and their suburbs, regional cities and their suburbs, towns and other communities and settlements with some official endorsement in Australia. Where existing standardisation exists, such as for the "Cities" – actually groupings of suburbs in major cities corresponding to Australian metropolitan local government areas (e.g. City of Unley in South Australia) – this project should absorb any existing standards and consensus.

The main focus of this project, however, is to standardise articles about Australian municipalities for which no standardisation exists. Specifically this means we are targeting communities with a population of less than about 15,000, especially those which aren't already using an "Australian city infobox" or "Australian suburb infobox" template.

Parentage and descendants
Parent project(s): WikiProject Australia (a child of WikiProject Countries)

Descendant project(s): 6 pre-existing WikiProjects for capital cities of Australia; 3 other Australian city projects (see also: Category:WikiProject Australian cities); 1 Australian region-level project; 7 Australian state-level projects


 * Australian state-level projects:
 * WikiProject New South Wales started June 2007 (New South Wales minus the scope of Sydney and Riverina)
 * WikiProject Northern Territory started May 2007 (Northern Territory)
 * WikiProject Queensland started October 2007 (Queensland - replaced WikiProject Gold Coast)
 * WikiProject South Australia started October 2007 (South Australia)
 * WikiProject Tasmania started October 2004 (Tasmania) - replaced WikiProject Hobart)
 * WikiProject Western Australia started December 2006 (Western Australia)
 * WikiProject Victoria started December 2006 (Victoria)


 * Australian state-level project not yet started:
 * WikiProject Australian Capital Territory not yet started (Australian Capital Territory - to replace WikiProject Canberra)


 * Australian capital city projects:
 * WikiProject Adelaide started October 2004 (Adelaide)
 * WikiProject Brisbane started January 2005 (Brisbane)
 * WikiProject Canberra started October 2004 (Canberra)
 * WikiProject Melbourne started April 2004 (Melbourne)
 * WikiProject Perth started March 2005 (Perth)
 * WikiProject Sydney started September 2004 (Sydney)


 * Australian region-level project:
 * WikiProject Riverina started February 2007 (Riverina region of NSW)


 * Australian regional cities projects:
 * WikiProject Geelong started January 2006 (Geelong)
 * WikiProject Townsville started August 2006 (Townsville)

Related pages
Similar WikiProjects


 * WikiProject French communes
 * WikiProject German districts
 * WikiProject Swiss municipalities

Related Portals
 * Portal:Australia

Related Collaborations
 * Australian collaboration of the fortnight

Related Regional notice boards
 * Australian Wikipedians' notice board

Related groups of Wikipedians
 * see Category:Australian Wikipedians

Participants
User AUSTPLACES



General strategy and discussion forums
Pre-existing standards and consensi:


 * We have previously named almost all Australian towns and cities in the format: Town/city name, State name (e.g. Nowra, New South Wales). There are various exceptions such as Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra (Darwin would also qualify by Australian rules, but leads to a disambiguation page due to global use). Note that as of November 2010, this policy is under dispute (see this discussion) and subsequently many articles on Australian towns and non-capital cities have been moved to more concise titles (eg Wagga Wagga).
 * Where the town/city name has or is likely to have other uses, a link from the appropriate disambiguation page should be made (eg. Darwin contains a link to Darwin, Northern Territory, and Kingston contains links to several Australian towns).
 * A redirect from Town/city name should be made whenever the name by itself does not presently require disambiguation (eg Nowra redirects to Nowra, New South Wales) and from Town/city nickname if it's extremely common (eg. Wagga).
 * Where the Town/city, State name format still has conflicts (such as Springfield, Victoria and Springfield, Victoria (Macedon Ranges)) add a regional term to the secondary location. Often this can be the local government area; but a more general term may be necessary when the less notable one spans multiple LGAs.
 * Due to disambiguation issues, the article about the state of Victoria is Victoria (Australia).

Tasks:
 * 1) to be added

Place term definitions

 * Territory &mdash; a region of Australian land directly administered by the Commonwealth government
 * Territory (state) &mdash; a territory of Australia which is mainly treated like a state; refers only to either Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory which are administered by state-level governments; or possibly Norfolk Island; see: States and territories of Australia
 * Local Government Area, LGA, City (council), Rural city, Town (council), District (council), Region/Regional (council), Shire, Borough, Municipality/Municipal council, Community government council, Aboriginal council, Island council, Area &mdash; a bounded area of land administered at a local-level government (the third level of government in Australia); the land of states is typically sectioned completely into LGAs; see Local Government Area
 * Electoral division &mdash; federal electorate; see Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives
 * Electoral district &mdash; a state-level electorate (e.g. Morphett)
 * Landmark

Populated places:
 * City, Regional city &mdash; in common understanding, a metropolis in Australia (e.g. Sydney)
 * Town &mdash; in common understanding, a densely-populated place which isn't a city; see Town for official meaning

Geographical features:
 * Ocean
 * River
 * Lake
 * Mountain
 * Valley, Glen

Templates

 * WP Australia - used on article talk pages to identify and assess Australian place name articles. Remember to add place=yes to automatically group the article into the WikiProject.

Infoboxes

 * Infobox Australian place

Stub templates
Incomplete list:
 * Australia-geo-stub
 * Canberra-geo-stub
 * NewSouthWales-geo-stub
 * Sydney-geo-stub
 * NorthernTerritory-geo-stub
 * Queensland-geo-stub
 * SouthAustralia-geo-stub
 * Adelaide-geo-stub
 * Tasmania-geo-stub
 * Tasmania-geo-stub
 * VictoriaAU-geo-stub
 * Melbourne-geo-stub
 * WesternAustralia-geo-stub
 * Australia-road-stub

Referencing templates

 * BoM Aust stats
 * Census 2016 AUS, Census 2011 AUS or Census 2006 AUS
 * Gazetteer of Australia
 * DoL suburb image NSW only.
 * NSW GNR NSW only.

Categories

 * Category:Geography of Australia
 * Category:Australian capital cities
 * Category:Coastal cities in Australia
 * Category:Port cities in Australia
 * Category:Geography of the Australian Capital Territory
 * Category:Geography of New South Wales
 * Category:Cities in New South Wales
 * Category:Regions of New South Wales
 * Category:Towns in New South Wales
 * Category:Geography of the Northern Territory
 * Category:Cities in the Northern Territory
 * Category:Regions of the Northern Territory
 * Category:Towns in the Northern Territory
 * Category:Geography of Queensland
 * Category:Cities in Queensland
 * Category:Regions of Queensland
 * Category:Far North Queensland
 * Category:North Queensland
 * Category:Gold Coast, Queensland
 * Category:Counties of Queensland (now only used for historical purposes)
 * Category:Sunshine Coast, Queensland
 * Category:Towns in Queensland
 * Category:Geography of South Australia
 * Category:Cities in South Australia
 * Category:Regions of South Australia
 * Category:Towns in South Australia
 * Category:Geography of Tasmania
 * Category:Cities in Tasmania
 * Category:Regions of Tasmania
 * Category:Towns in Tasmania
 * Category:Geography of Victoria (Australia)
 * Category:Cities in Victoria (Australia)
 * Category:Regions of Victoria (Australia)
 * Category:Towns in Victoria (Australia)
 * Category:Geography of Western Australia
 * Category:Cities in Western Australia
 * Category:Regions of Western Australia
 * Category:Towns in Western Australia

Lists

 * we have lists of our cities and towns already -- to be added
 * Articles in Category:Postal codes of Australia list all the placenames used for mailing addresses.

Useful Resources
These are useful online resources to find information for articles.

National

 * Placename information
 * History of Places in Australia


 * General Data
 * Demographic information by postcode search via domain.com.au
 * Population can be looked up from the ABS website
 * Geoscience Australia has a wealth of information about placenames, and is the place to find Lat/long co-ordinates
 * Climate - Bureau of Meteorology
 * Miscellaneous Data on localities at Wilkins Tourist Maps
 * Locality Descriptions and history at Walkabout Australian Travel Guide
 * Distances between locations by roads search page at
 * Post Office opening/closing dates - useful for actual settlement dates of towns/name changes at Premier Postal History. As of January 2021 there are over 2700 locations which reference links to this site.
 * In January 2021 Premier Postal was taken over by Phoenix Auctions and the information incorporated in the Phoenix website. The Premier Postal website is still available but most of the links from Wiki no longer work. Work has commenced on converting the links to the Phoenix website.
 * At the same time the URL's are being converted to link direct to the location on the Phoenix website using the "filter" option in the URL, instead of having to re-enter the location after using the reference.
 * To obtain optimum results, the following rules should be used when adding or converting the URLs
 * Replace any blanks in the location name by either an asterisk or a full stop - leaving the blank in, will bring up an error.
 * Prefix and suffix the location with an asterisk which also show any surrounding post offices which may be helpful
 * There may be some differences in location names where an apostrophe or full stop may be included in wiki and not in the post office name or vice versa.
 * An example is Kellys Plains, New South Wales which contains an apostrophe in the post office name http://www.phoenixauctions.com.au/cgi-bin/wsPhoenix.sh/Viewpocdwrapper.p?SortBy=NSW&filter=*Kelly's*Plains*
 * 27 January 2021. The https url option which was not operating from the old website, is now functional again. As a result the links to the old website are now working again. This takes the pressure off the conversion to the new website. The conversion will continue but at a slower rate as its priority has dropped.
 * Google Street View- for pics in External Links- copy URL of selected pic. BUT copy/paste 3rd Coordinate over both the first 2 to align pin and pedestrian icons on associated map (see Wannon River).
 * LGA National
 * Australian Local Government Association


 * Electorate
 * Federal Electorate Search


 * Area Statistics from the ABS
 * 2011 Census - select State Suburb, Local Government Area or Statistical Local Area.
 * 2006 Census - select State Suburb, Local Government Area or Statistical Local Area.
 * 2001 Census - select Urban Centre/Locality, State Suburb, Local Government Area or Statistical Local Area

Australian Capital Territory

 * Placename Information
 * ACT Planning and Land Authority


 * Electorate
 * Electorate Website'''

New South Wales

 * Placename Information
 * Geographical Names Board of NSW has a search site, and you can download their whole database of names.
 * Aboriginal place names around Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay
 * New South Wales Department of Lands Imagery of NSW localities with borders and names of nearby localities.


 * LGA
 * New South Wales local governments association website
 * New South Wales Council website list at Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW (LGSA)


 * Electorate
 * State Electoral Office

Northern Territory

 * Placename Information
 * NT Place Names Register


 * LGA
 * Local Governments Association of the Northern Territory website


 * Electorate
 * Northern Territory Electoral Commission

Queensland

 * Placename Information
 * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages look in the section titled 'Resources categorised by type'


 * General Data
 * Information Queensland
 * Place name information


 * LGA
 * Queensland local governments association website
 * Listing of what towns are in each LGA
 * Profile of LGA's statewide
 * Map of LGA's
 * Map of all 32 new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island local government areas
 * Local Government Directory - links to useful resources


 * Electorate
 * Electoral Commission Queensland.

South Australia

 * Placename Information
 * Property Location Browser, provided by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure
 * Location SA Map Viewer, provided by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure
 * South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society Inc


 * LGA
 * South Australian local governments association website
 * Office for State/Local Government Relations


 * South Australia History
 * Manning Index
 * Flinders Ranges Research


 * Electorate
 * State Electoral Office

Tasmania

 * Placename information
 * Placenames Tasmania


 * LGA
 * Tasmanian local governments association website


 * Electorate
 * Tasmanian Electoral Commission

Victoria

 * Placename Information
 * VICNAMES
 * Database of Aboriginal Placenames of Victoria
 * State library of Victoria, Guide to Maps and databases


 * LGA
 * Victorian local governments association website
 * Local Government Victoria


 * Electorate
 * Victorian Electoral Commission

Western Australia

 * Placename Information
 * Western Australian Place Names and Addressing


 * LGA
 * Western Australian local governments association website


 * Electorate
 * Western Australian Electoral Commission

Australian Antarctic

 * Placename/feature information
 * SCAR Feature Catalogue

Tools

 * Main tool page: toolserver.org


 * Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
 * Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
 * Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
 * Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.