Data Sources

Australia Council Explorer is built on open government data, community-maintained datasets, and official registers.

👶

Childcare

2 sources
ACECQA National Register

Official Australian Government register of approved childcare services, quality ratings, and operating hours.

Starting Blocks (Dept. of Education)

Australian Government portal for finding early childhood education and care.

🏥

Hospitals

2 sources
OpenStreetMap — Hospitals (amenity=hospital)

Community-maintained map data including hospital locations, types, and emergency department availability across VIC.

Health Direct — GP & Clinic Finder

Australian Government health service directory (referenced for future integration).

🛝

Playgrounds

2 sources
OpenStreetMap — Playgrounds (leisure=playground)

Community-sourced playground locations with features including fencing, shade, BBQ facilities, toilets, and surface types.

Nominatim (OSM Geocoding)

OSM reverse geocoding service used to enrich unnamed playground records with location names.

📚

Libraries

70 sources
OpenStreetMap — Libraries (amenity=library)

Community-maintained library locations and details across all Australian states.

Victorian Local Government Areas (Data Vic)

Official VIC council boundary data used for library-to-council association.

MyLibrary Digital (event feeds)

Library event management platform used by Bayside, Hume, Monash, Stonnington and other VIC councils.

🏫

Schools

2 sources
OpenStreetMap — Schools (amenity=school)

Community-sourced school locations across VIC, NSW, QLD and other Australian states.

ABS Geographic Boundaries

Australian Bureau of Statistics geographic data used for suburb and state boundary calculations.

📅

Events

3 sources
Eventbrite

Public event listings scraped via Eventbrite API for local community events.

Humanitix

Ethical ticketing platform — event listings for Australian councils and community organisations.

MyLibrary Digital

Library event management platform used by multiple Victorian councils.

🗺️

Maps & Geocoding

3 sources
Mapbox

Map tiles, geocoding (suburb/address search), and reverse geocoding used across all finder pages.

OpenStreetMap Contributors

© OpenStreetMap contributors — base map data underlying all location features.

Nominatim

OSM reverse geocoding used to look up place names from coordinates.

🏛️

Councils & Government

1 source
Australian Electoral Commission — Enrol to Vote

Linked from council profiles to help residents enrol to vote.

All data is used for informational purposes only. We do not store or redistribute raw data beyond what is necessary to power search features.