Population Estimates for Non-standard Geographical Areas. the Small Area Pilot Project

For a number of years the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has provided a significant amount of census data in Geographic Information System (GIS) ready format. However, the spatial units upon which the data is based has not always been conducive to user needs, due to its reliance on standard geography. With the increasing interest in census-based data in other geographic forms, the NSW office of the ABS instigated the Small Area Pilot Project. This project explored the feasibility of producing population and other statistics from census data for geographical areas other than those normally provided by the ABS.