How we built 17,410 suburb pages from official Australian government data.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted the most recent Census in 2021. RefDat uses the Census data at the Statistical Area Level 1 (SAL) geography, which covers all populated localities in Australia.
The 2021 Census collected detailed demographic information from over 10 million Australians. This data is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, allowing us to republish it freely.
SEIFA is an ABS product that ranks Australian areas by socio-economic disadvantage. It combines Census variables related to income, employment, education, and occupation to produce a single disadvantage score.
The SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage (IRSD) ranges from 0-100, where higher scores indicate less disadvantage. This score appears on every RefDat suburb page and helps users understand the social and economic context of each locality.
Australian postcodes don't map perfectly to suburbs. Many suburbs have multiple postcodes, and some postcodes serve multiple suburbs. We use the primary postcode for each locality, acknowledging that geographic boundaries are complex.
A "suburb" is an informal geographic area. A "locality" is the formal ABS term. A "postcode" is an Australian Post identifier. RefDat uses these terms correctly, explaining the differences on each suburb page.
RefDat suburb pages include demographic breakdowns for:
Each percentage is calculated from Census respondents in that locality. We round to nearest whole percent for clarity.
These terms mean different things: A "locality" is the formal ABS geographic unit used for Census collection. A "suburb" is an informal term for a residential area (sometimes matching a locality, sometimes not). A "postcode" is an Australian Post mail delivery zone. On RefDat, we use the formal ABS locality name but also list common suburb names where they differ.
Census data is collected every 5 years. The next Census will be in 2026. RefDat postcodes.refdat.com uses 2021 Census data and SEIFA 2021 indexes. When 2026 Census data is released, we will rebuild all 17,410 pages with updated demographics.
RefDat covers every populated locality in Australia that appeared in the 2021 Census. This includes 17,410 suburbs across all states and territories. Some very small or remote locations may have limited demographic data due to Census confidentiality rules.
Visit Australian Postcodes or read our article on how Australian postcodes work.