Talk:Lawn Hill, Queensland

What and where is this?

I cannot work out where this "locality" is supposed to be. Mt Isa and Burke look some distance away on the map, and Google doesn't help. The 2016 census boundaries cover a smaller area than the 2011 census - both SSCs. This Queensland Govt. place names search shows two completely different spots for each, both "Named after National Park and pastoral holding. Named and bounded by the Minister for Natural Resources and Minister for Mines 25 May 2001". Kerry Raymond - can I hand this one over to you? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:50, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Laterthanyouthink: Reality (and the ABS) is the problem here. First, the locality of Lawn Hill is exactly where the coords say it is (drive to those coords and, yep, you will be Lawn Hill). It is one of the many localities that the Qld Govt decided (in its infinite wisdom but for no obvious reason to mere plebs like ourselves) should be split across 2 local government areas (City of Mount Isa and Shire of Burke). The local government areas out there are huge so it's definitely a long haul to stop in at their town halls in Mount Isa and Burketown, but that's life in our "wide brown land". Google Maps does know about the locality of Lawn Hill, it's here (and nicely shown with boundaries). What the ABS choose to use as their boundaries for census purposes is an ABS decision and often unrelated to official boundaries (which are determined by the state governments), but traditionally ABS went with the old-fashioned idea that they would report the populations of SSCs using more-or-less the official boundaries of the suburb/locality as defined by the respective state governments. In the lead-up to the 2011, the ABS became concerned that localities with small populations might not get adequate privacy, so they decided that they would aggregate localities with small populations with neighbouring localities until they reached a population large enough to ensure privacy. This was a most unpopular decision and they reverted in the 2016 census to reporting more-or-less on the same boundaries as the state government. The areas reported by ABS are not necessarily the same as the official areas (but are often close enough) but in 2011 due to this aggregation decision, the areas are often much larger than the named SSC, because they are including the areas of other adjacent localities. If you compare the Google map boundaries (above) with the boundaries of the 2011 census for Lawn Hill, you will see the ABS extended their Lawn Hill boundaries all the way up to the Gulf of Carpentaria, which massively overstates the area of the locality of Lawn Hill. That is why you may see Wikipedia articles say "the population of XYZ and surrounding areas was Such And Such" to finesse the issue that it is not just the population of XYZ that is being reported. There are two entries in the Queensland Place Name database because of the split between local government areas. That is their normal practice and that is why they repeat the origin of the name (it's part of the same locality). Their database design doesn't seem to allow them to enter it once as being in two LGAs. I've asked the same questions as you over the years, and have been on this learning curve with coming to grips with Qld geograpy for some years and I have regular email with the Qld Govt when I encounter some seriously weird stuff in the QPN or Qld Globe (which sometimes turns out to be my misunderstanding and sometimes turns out to be an error on their part, which they will usually fix). The best tool for Qld geography is the Qld Globe (rather than the QPN or the ABS). I do online training sessions (via Zoom) for people to learn to use Qld Globe. I am happy to do one with you if that would help you. Kerry (talk) 08:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Laterthanyouthink: I did a bit more work on the article to flesh out the infobox etc. Kerry (talk) 09:07, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Ah, thanks Kerry! I was actually away on another tab editing something else and didn't notice that my earlier reply had not saved owing to an edit conflict. Some of it no longer applies, but I'll copy-paste it all here for the record:

Oh! Thanks very much for the long explanation, Kerry, and for your tip and offer of help for Qld Globe. I think I have to pass on that one as I don't often do much editing on Qld articles (and nearly always unintentionally led there!), but I'll bear it in mind. It is a bit bizarre (of Qld Govt), as you suggest, but I guess we have to deal with it. If you can think of any way of somehow explaining some of this succinctly in the article, it might help someone else scratching their head over this one again one day? FYI, I have created redirects from Lawn Hill Creek and Lawn Hill Gorge to Boodjamulla National Park, as that article mentions both, although of course the creek travels through the larger locality as well. Also added a redirect from Lawn Hill Station, which I'm hoping will become an article sometime as there seem to be quite a few mentions of it in the literature and on wp, and the park was created out of land from the station. Thanks again for the explanation. If I ever need to refresh my memory, I'll return to this talk page! Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)