[talk-au] Talk-au Digest, Vol 30, Issue 1

[Alex Lum]

I wondered this myself, and I haven't got a definitive answer, but
seeing the locality boundary data was derived from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics, I spent some time on the ABS website to try and
work it out.

Under the Australian Standard Geographic Classification (AGCS), a
locality can be classified in one of four ways: major urban areas
(urban centres with 100,000 or more people), other urban areas (those
with between 1,000 and 99,999 people), rural localities (places with
200-999 people), and rural balance areas (the rural remainder).

I believe the "- Bal" indicates a rural balance area, that is, one
with a low population (less than 200 people). This makes sense as it
seems to apply to large areas with very low population density such as
airports (Point Cook and Melbourne Airport).

Alex.

> Hi,
>  There are a few suburbs in the western suburbs of Melbourne with " - Bal"
> in the name, like "Point Cook - Bal". Anyone know what these are?
>
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-37.9092&lon=144.7497&zoom=14&layers=B000FTF
>
> Also, Tarneit - Bal, Caroline Springs - Bal...maybe others.