The Geographical Names Register (GNR) is a database of the authoritative place names in NSW. Since its inception in 1966 the Geographical Names Board has recorded information in relation to NSW geographical names within the GNR. There are currently over eighty thousand place names recorded in the GNR. On average, 200 new place names are assigned and added to this database every year. Every record in this database has the provision for over thirty attributes ranging from spatial location information in respect to co-ordinate, map tile, parish etc. to cultural information on history, meaning and origin. The GNR also holds official information such as the name’s status and feature type, and temporal information dealing with the gazettal date of the name.

Addressing is the specific identification of a fixed location (for example, a plot of land, building, part of a building, way of access or other construction) which is represented by a structured arrangement of place names. It may be further detailed with the inclusion of other valuable attributes including geocodes.

Positioning is NSW’s authoritative, reliable, high-accuracy spatial referencing system. The Positioning theme includes the coordinates and their uncertainty of all location-based data promulgated from, or related to, the Geocentric Datum of Australia (GDA94) and the Australian Height Datum (AHD71).

Imagery is the product created from the use of airborne, space borne or terrestrial sensors. These technologies image the surface of the Earth to allow for the visualisation of land surface features. Imagery includes data sourced from satellite, aircraft and vehicle mounted sensors. These technologies have a range of capabilities that includes but is not limited to, the ability to record multispectral and hyperspectral data and produce products such as orthorectified mosaics and stereo-viewable imagery.

The Administrative Boundaries theme is a collection of legislative, regulatory, political, maritime and general administrative boundaries sourced from local and state boundary datasets.

Foundation spatial data is defined as “the authoritative geographic information that underpins, or can add significant value to, any other information. It supports evidence-based decisions across government, industry and the community”1. Criteria has been developed to determine non-foundation from foundation. To be classified as foundation, the spatial data must contain one or more of the following characteristics to be deemed ‘foundation’: • be geospatial • essential for public safety and wellbeing • critical for a national and state or government function • contribute significantly to economic, social and environmental sustainability. NSW has adopted the ten data themes identified by ANZLIC. These are: 1. Administrative Boundaries 2. Land Parcel and Property 3. Geocoded Addressing 4. Transport 5. Positioning 6. Place Names 7. Elevation and Depth 8. Imagery 9. Water 10. Land Cover.

Suburb dataset represents the gazetted boundary of a suburb or locality area. The Geographical Names Board (GNB) is responsible for new suburb names and amendments to the extent of a suburb boundary. The dataset also contains post codes that are held against each suburb, sourced and matched from Australia Post. It is a polygon feature class within the NSW Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB).

Spot Height is a point feature class representing individual points on the earth’s surface, the elevation of which has been related to a datum by ground or photogrammetric survey. It is a part of the NSW Digital Topographic Database (DTDB).

Transport data is a representation of the land, water and air networks used to move people and goods, and deliver services, from one location to another. It includes network connectivity and characteristics such as type, name and potential restrictions on what can be moved through the network.