These fact sheets provide guidance for analysing regional data including geography, population, employment and industry.
Understanding regional data series - fact sheets
This fact sheet provides an update to the Working zones geography following the 2021 Australian Statistical Geography Standard. The Working zones statistical geography describes regions that reflect commuting patterns of Australian workers and can be used to analyse local labour markets. This release includes an excel correspondence and shapefile.
South East Queensland research project
BCARR has undertaken a South East Queensland (SEQ) research project to provide an evidence base on the spatial distribution of population growth, jobs, connectivity and liveability of SEQ. This evidence can be used to monitor how population, jobs, connectivity and liveability change over time and respond to investment. The report aims to support the department's policy and project delivery. The final report is available below.
Population change and internal migration during the COVID-19 pandemic
Understanding spatial patterns of population change is vital in planning for services and infrastructure and in managing the pressures created as local populations grow and decline. A large shock to the Australian economy and society, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, has the potential to create new pressure for settlement pattern change. This report investigates regional population change and internal migration flows during the peak period of the pandemic (2020-21), contrasting with a 5-year period representing the medium term, and the population change for 2021-22.
The report uses the BCARR migration geography, which separates regions by characteristics including city status and whether coastal, inland or remote.
The future of Australian cities and regions in a post-pandemic world
This research was conducted by the University of South Australia (UniSA) between March 2022 and June 2023 and was co-funded by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts in partnership with the iMOVE Co-operative Research Centre.
The study addresses the following questions:
- What are the primary determinants of firm and residential location patterns across Australia?
- What are the drivers of or barriers to attracting and retaining businesses and households to regional cities, and how do they differ based on characteristics of businesses, households and regions?
- What are the possible long-term impacts of COVID-19 on firm and residential location decisions across metropolitan and regional cities?
- How are these impacts likely to influence resulting spatial patterns of employment activity and residential settlement within and across these cities?
To answer these questions UniSA undertook nationwide surveys of businesses, landlords and residents and conducted interviews and focus groups with residents across different city sizes and types, real estate and property developers, commercial landlords, state and local government officials, business owners and senior executives.
This study provides important insights for policymakers, businesses, and communities on current and possible future patterns of employment activity and residential settlement.
You can read the report Long-term pandemic impact on business and residential location to find out more.
Experimental Gross Regional Product estimates
Gross Regional Product (GRP) is an estimate of each region's unique contribution to the national economy. While Australian regional economies are interlinked, GRP can be used as an indicator of local economic activity.
BCARR has produced experimental estimates of GRP for 2015–16 and 2020–21. Estimates are produced using the ABS Statistical Areas Level 4 which broadly represents local labour markets. Information is also provided regarding GRP estimates for Northern Australia, which spans Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
These estimates are indicative of the economic activity in a region and should be used with caution. See the fact sheet for the conceptual and data limitations which may affect the estimates. Data can be found in the Excel file below or through our Experimental GRP estimates interactive map.
The Department undertakes research, data collection and analysis related to issues affecting regional Australia. The information presented here allows policy makers, program administrators and researchers to understand the impacts their activities have on regional communities.
Statistical Analysis
- Population trends BCARR Migration Geography
Fact sheet providing an overview of Australian population trends over the five years between 2016 and 2021, using BCARR migration geography. - 2021 Estimated Resident Population
Statistical fact sheet of the Estimated Resident Population for Australian regions and capital cities to June 2021. - Snapshot of Cities and Regions—chart pack
This chart pack provides a summary of population, employment, housing and liveability trends for our cities and regions.
Understanding regional data series
- Understanding statistical geography
This fact sheet provides a quick guide to assist people to analyse regional data and consider what geographical scale most accurately represents their region/s of interest. - Understanding regional data: Population
This fact sheet provides a high level guide to finding and using regional population data. - Understanding regional data: Employment
This fact sheet provides a guide to sourcing, analysing and presenting regional employment data. It also includes a summary of other labour market data sources and their characteristics. - Understanding regional data: Industry
This fact sheet provides a guide for finding and analysing regional industry data. The fact sheet also describes methods for constructing key indices of industrial diversity and structural change across regions. - Understanding Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA)
This fact sheet provides a guide to understanding and using the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) data produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. SEIFA is a set of four indexes which are used to compare relative advantage and disadvantage of small areas.
Experimental Gross Regional Product estimates
Gross Regional Product (GRP) is an estimate of each region's unique contribution to the national economy. While Australian regional economies are interlinked, GRP can be used as an indicator of local economic activity.
BCARR has produced experimental estimates of GRP for 2015–16 and 2020–21. The estimates are available for download and are accompanied by a fact sheet summarising GRP size and change across regions, as well as an interactive map page on the Regional Data Hub.
Estimates are produced using the ABS Statistical Areas Level 4 which broadly represents local labour markets. Information is also provided regarding GRP estimates for Northern Australia, which spans across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Population change and internal migration during the COVID-19 pandemic
Population change and internal migration during the COVID-19 pandemic
Understanding spatial patterns of population change is vital in planning for services and infrastructure, and in managing the pressures created as local populations grow and decline. A large shock to the Australian economy and society, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, has the potential to create new pressure for settlement pattern change. In this context, this report investigates regional population change and internal migration flows during the peak period of the pandemic (2020-21), contrasting with a five-year period representing the medium term, and the population change for 2021-22.
The report uses the BCARR migration geography, which separates regions by characteristics including city status, and whether coastal, inland or remote.
Working zones 2021 update
This fact sheet provides an update to the Working zones geography following the 2021 Australian Statistical Geography Standard. The Working zones statistical geography describes regions that reflect commuting patterns of Australian workers and can be used to analyse local labour markets. The release includes an excel correspondence and a shapefile to enable people to analyse their own data on this geography.
The future of Australian cities and regions in a post-pandemic world
iMOVE report - The future of Australian cities and regions in a post-pandemic world
This research was conducted by the University of South Australia (UniSA) between March 2022 and June 2023, and was co-funded by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts in partnership with the iMOVE Co-operative Research Centre.
The study addresses the following questions:
- What are the primary determinants of firm and residential location patterns across Australia?
- What are the drivers of or barriers to attracting and retaining businesses and households to regional cities, and how do they differ based on characteristics of businesses, households and regions?
- What are the possible long-term impacts of COVID-19 on firm and residential location decisions across metropolitan and regional cities?
- How are these impacts likely to influence resulting spatial patterns of employment activity and residential settlement within and across these cities?
To answer these questions, UniSA undertook nationwide surveys of businesses, landlords and residents, along with conducting interviews and focus groups with residents across different city sizes and types, real estate and property developers, commercial landlords, state and local government officials, business owners and senior executives.
This study provides important insights for policymakers, businesses, and communities on current and possible future patterns of employment activity and residential settlement.
Research
- Nearly twenty years of research within the Department on the important issues facing regional Australia: Research into Regional Australia.
This is not the latest release. View the latest Working zones update
This report provides an overview of the newly developed Australian 'working zone' (WZ) regions which have been compiled by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE). WZs are mutually exclusive regions delineated to reflect the commuting patterns of Australian workers. WZs are useful for spatial analysis of economic, social and policy issues at a regional level because they reflect the actual geographic behaviour of individuals, as opposed to other administrative and political boundaries. They are particularly useful for analysing labour markets, because individual WZs have minimal work-based commuting flows either into or out of adjoining WZs.
- Working Zones 2016
- Working Zones 2016 Data
- Working Zones 2016 to SA2 Concordance
- Working Zones 2016 Shape File
Domestic aviation activity – cities and regions
This file provides data on Regular Public Transport (RPT) Domestic Aviation Activity in Australia by sector type.
Each sector is classified using the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) 2016 based on location of the airport pair.
‘Major Cities’ covers sectors between 2 airports located in Major Cities, ‘Regional’ covers sectors where at least one airport is in an Inner Regional or Outer Regional area, but no airports are in Remote or Very remote areas and ‘Remote’ covers sectors where at least one airport is in a Remote or Very Remote location.
Data are provided for Flights, Passenger trips, Seats, Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs), Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), Distance flown, Load factors (RPKs/ASKs), Distance per flight, Seats per flight, Number of operators and Number of sectors.
Raw data is available in the sheet called “Data”. Use the sheet called “Chart” to select a metric and see it as a chart. More information and definitions are provided in the sheet called “Notes”.
Review of the National Cities Performance Framework – Final paper
The National Cities Performance Framework (NCPF) was launched in 2017 with the commitment to conduct reviews every 3 years. This report covers the feedback received and the approach for the future of the NCPF. The conclusion of the NCPF review is that alternate departmental data and research products better meet the needs of stakeholders and that the Framework should be phased out. Targeted research will focus on issues of the highest priority to the government and cities’ stakeholders.