Updated: 12 March 2004

Soil Resources

Soils are one of the key factors which limit human settlement in Australia. Few Australian soils are of good quality - most are naturally infertile. This map shows the extent of soil limitations across the country.

In order to overcome problems associated with the many classifications in existence, this map classes soils according to limitations of use - in particular chemical and physical limitations. Altogether, four primary groupings are shown and these are further divided into a total of 29 mapping units. A detailed table relates these units to traditionally classified soil profiles and landforms.

Product Specifications

Coverage: Australia.

Currency: 1976-77.

Coordinates: Geographical

Datum: AGD66 (GDA94 compliant at this scale)

Projection: Simple Conic on two standard parallels 18S and 36S.

Medium: Paper, flat and folded copies.