Locality snapshots are brief summary profiles of the key characteristics of every designated locality, or place name, within a Local Government Area. They are based on ABS State Suburb boundaries, which, despite the name, cover more than just "suburbs". In 2016, they are a close (though not always exact) match, at the meshblock level, to every officially gazetted locality within Australia.

Since the early 2000s, every place in Australia has had an officially gazetted boundary with the relevant state/territory government. These place names are part of the Geocoded National Address File (GNAF), maintained by PSMA Australia. Every dwelling within a locality boundary has a single place name to use as their address, for postal, emergency management, navigation etc. These are not The same as postcodes, which can cover many different localities.

In the 2016 Census, the ABS has matched these locality boundaries very closely for the first time, enabling users to get information on the characteristics of every gazetted place name in Australia. There are over 15,000 of these localities, ranging in size from Reservoir in Victoria (population 50,479) to Dundas in WA (population 3). Australia-wide, there are about 800 localities with zero population. The vast majority of localities are small, rural places; more than two-thirds have a population of less than 500.

The Locality Snapshots page in profile.id shows some basic information for every locality which has population within the LGA boundary. The localities presented may extend beyond the LGA boundary and therefore don’t add up to the LGA totals. Due to the small population of many areas, only a limited subset of data are presented, compared to the main area profiles. Most importantly, because the boundaries were only defined in the 2016 Census, there is no time series data. However, this can still give you a good understanding of the basic characteristics of each place.

The detailed locality snapshots have a range of Census data covering population, sex, age, employment, dwelling types and tenure, income etc. for every locality with 50 people or more. For localities with less than 50 people, only population (total, males, females) and total dwellings are shown. Note that due to ABS random adjustment to protect the confidentiality of individuals, males and females may not always add up to total persons, particularly for the smaller population areas.

For full time series detail, please use the Area Profiles section of profile.id. The small areas in that part of the site need a much larger population due to the more detailed data provided, and while larger localities are often available as small areas in their own right, small ones are often combined to form larger areas, losing some data resolution. Hence the extra data for the latest Census year in locality snapshots.

Locality snapshots are only available for localities that were gazetted prior to the 2016 Census. Any changes to boundaries or names since the 2016 Census cannot be reflected in here (but can be updated in the full small areas under Area Profiles).

All data in Locality Snapshots are based on place of usual residence for persons, and place of enumeration for dwellings.