The topline reports from the 2016 Census were released 2 weeks ago, and are already making their way into research reports and media analysis on everything from intergenerational changes in sexual orientation to housing affordability. Needless to say both of the former have changed a lot in 5 years!
The ABS held off on releasing the underlying data (Datapacks) so as not to steal their thunder in reporting on the findings of the census. But now the data has been set free! As of 12th July, datapacks and mapping files are available for download at https://datapacks.censusdata.abs.gov.au/datapacks/.
Some cool things about the new datapacks compared to the 2011 release:
- No login / subscription required to access the data - it's finally 'open data'
- Shape files and Map Interchange files available at all geographic levels including suburb and LGA.
- Tables are *mostly* the same in structure and field names as 2011
- Geographies are *mostly* consistent with 2011 - well, the ABS geographies are consistent, and LGAs/ Suburbs/ Postcodes have some new additions amendments based on changes by the owners of these geographies.
We've already downloaded and loaded the new data up; you'll see some Tableau visuals on the Aussie population coming out over the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, happy number crunching!