The Torres Strait Region consists of 18 island communities grouped into five traditional island clusters/groups and two Northern Peninsula Area (mainland Australia) communities. The availability of data for each of these communities varies depending on the data source.
Where data is available for the 18 island communities/five traditional island groups and the two Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) Torres Strait communities, it is referred to in this publication as the `Region’.
Where data is only available for the 18 island communities/5 traditional island groups but not the 2 NPA communities, it is referred to in this publication as the `Islands’.
The data presented in this publication (with the exception of mobility and place of work data) are compiled using the 2011 and 2016 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS): Indigenous Structure. The ASGS: Indigenous Structure is only available from 2011 onwards. It is based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ population distribution in the broader Australian community, so is ideal for analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data. In the ASGS: Indigenous Structure, Indigenous Locations (ILOCs) are the smallest available unit. These are combined to create Indigenous Areas (IAREs) and then Indigenous Regions (IREGs). Data on mobility and place of work is only available at the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Statistical Area 2 (SA2) level. For this reason, data on mobility and place of work is restricted to the Islands only and is not available for the two NPA communities.
Further information about ABS statistical geography can be found here.
Table 5 below provides a summary of the type of statistical geography used in this publication for each Torres Strait community.