Frequently Asked Questions

What is data.nsw?

Public sector data are valuable, useful and interesting.

The NSW Government creates a wealth of data and these are sometimes hard to find. This catalogue provides a central list of data available on agency websites.

What's new?

We've made a few changes since data.nsw launched in 2009:

  • There are now five lists to help you find what you need - publications, spatial data, data feeds, apps, and apps4nsw (archived).
  • You said it would be good to be able to filter by file type. Now you can!
  • We've tweaked the site architecture to make it easier to navigate.
  • You can now search two catalogues (data and publications) from one search box.
  • On the links page you'll see the list of other catalogues around the world is growing!

Who is behind data.nsw?

data.nsw.gov.au is an initiative of ICT Policy

What File Formats are found in the catalogue ?

CSV

Comma Separated Values. Plain text file that stores tabular data delineated by commas.

PDF

Portable Document Format. Adobe Acrobat product. Universal file format that maintains document appearance regardless of the operating system used.

XLS

Excel. Microsoft Office product. Spreadsheet file.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. Cross platform language code used to create electronic documents for the Web.

XML

Extensible Markup Language. Open standard text format derived from SGML used to define data elements on a Web page.

EPS

Encapsulated Post Script. Image description format for vector based graphics.

EMF

Enhanced MetaFile.

Shape

Shapefile. ESRI product. Geographic vector data format.

ArcInfo

ESRI product. Geographic Information System (GIS) software.

SEGY

SEGY. Standard file format for storing geophysical data.

CGM

Computer Graphics Metafile. Open standard file format for two dimensional vector and raster graphics.

Geodatabase

Database containing geographic information and spatial data.

MapInfo

MapInfo product. Geographic Information System (GIS) software package.

API

Application Programming Interface. Middleware language and format used by an application program to access another program.

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation.

Zip

File compression format.

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group. Graphics file format that compresses digital images for transfer over the internet.

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