Skip to content
All guides

How to find historical aerial imagery in Australia, state by state

By Mazdak Ghasemi · Last checked 12 October 2026

Australia has been photographed from the air since the late 1920s, and much of that archive can now be searched online. Start with Geoscience Australia's national collection, which is free to search and download, then check the state archive for the place you care about. What differs between states is how much has been scanned, whether you can download it, and whether it costs anything.

Three things that all get called "historical imagery"

Knowing which one you have saves a lot of confusion later.

  • A scanned photo frame: a picture of the original print or film. It has no map coordinates, the scale changes across the frame, and tall terrain is displaced. Most free downloads are this.
  • An orthophoto or orthomosaic: frames that have been corrected and stitched so they line up with a map. You can measure from these. Fewer archives offer them, and they often cost money.
  • A viewer layer: historical imagery you can look at in a web map but not save. Good for checking what exists before you order or download anything.

If you download scanned frames and need to compare them with modern data, you will have to georeference them yourself, for example with the Georeferencer in QGIS, using features that have not moved such as road intersections or building corners.

Where to look

CoverageArchiveEarliestWhat you can do for free
NationalGeoscience Australia Historical Aerial Photography1928Search, and download frames that have been digitised
NSWHistorical Imagery Viewer1930Search and view
VICState Library Victoria collections1945Search and view digitised photographs
QLDQImagery, Queensland Globe1930sView, and download JPEG frames, eight per request
WALandgate Map Viewer Plus1948View; copies are quoted and sold
SAAerial Imagery – Greater Adelaide 19491949Open dataset under a Creative Commons licence
TASAerial Photo Viewer, LIST decade mosaics1940sSearch, preview and follow download links
ACTACTmapi1951View
NTAerial Photography Search Portalearly 1940sSearch the index of frames

National: Geoscience Australia

Geoscience Australia holds the Commonwealth's aerial photography: more than 1.2 million photos, some dating back to 1928. Its online Historical Aerial Photography collection lets you search and download the collection for free. The mapping system shows what exists over an area and, where a photo has been digitised, lets you preview and download the image. Because it is national, it is the best first stop.

New South Wales

The Historical Imagery Viewer from Spatial Services is an app for the search, discovery and display of historical imagery in NSW, covering aerial photography from 1930 to 2005.

Victoria

Victoria's state archive includes historic aerial photographs from the 1930s to the 1990s. Access to that archive is provided to the public sector; members of the public and the private sector purchase imagery from the state's spatial data retailers. Before paying, check the State Library Victoria, which has put two series online: State Aerial Survey photographs produced between 1945 and 1965, mostly of regional Victoria, and a later series from the late 1960s to the early 1980s covering most of metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Queensland

QImagery holds more than 900,000 high-resolution historical aerial photographs from the 1930s onwards. You search by location, view online, and download high-resolution frames for free in JPEG format, up to eight in one request. Queensland Globe also displays aerial imagery mosaics from 1930 to the present; where images are still under licence, they must be purchased.

Western Australia

Landgate's Map Viewer Plus shows historical imagery for free alongside current imagery. Perth has coverage from 1948 onwards; some parts of the state have been flown only once in 70 years. If you need a copy, Landgate supplies unrectified scans and enlargements in digital format, scanned at up to 1,270 dots per inch, and prices them by quotation after you submit an order form.

South Australia

South Australia publishes Aerial Imagery – Greater Adelaide 1949 as open data under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. It is black and white photography captured between January and March 1949, orthorectified and mosaicked, covering the greater metropolitan area of Adelaide including the Fleurieu Peninsula and parts of the South Australian Murray–Darling Basin. For other years and areas, search the Geoscience Australia collection.

Tasmania

In 1945 the Tasmanian Government commissioned a program of aerial photography for the entire state, and it holds a substantial library of that photography that has been scanned at high resolution. The Aerial Photo Viewer allows anyone to search the historical database for photographs covering an area, see a quick preview and the photo's details, and follow a link to download the high-resolution image. The LIST also publishes map services of aerial photography by decade, from 1941–1950 through to 1991–2000.

Australian Capital Territory

ACTmapi makes aerial photography of the ACT from 1951 to the present available for free, with the licence set out for each capture.

Northern Territory

The NT Government's Aerial Photography Search Portal contains photographs from the early 1940s to the present day that were captured or acquired by the NT Government, including records of events such as the Second World War, cyclones and floods. You can search by address, place name, coordinates or by drawing an area, and filter the results by year. The portal shows which photograph frames cover your search area.

Before you rely on a photo

  • Check the flight date, not the catalogue year. A site can change a lot within one year, and legal or contamination work usually needs the exact date.
  • Check the scale or flying height. It decides what you can actually see.
  • Look for neighbouring frames. Overlapping pairs can be viewed in stereo, which helps with terrain, vegetation height and excavations.
  • Keep the source details. Film number, run and frame are what a court, a regulator or a reviewer will ask for.

Find current imagery for the same site

Historical photos are most useful next to recent imagery of the same place. Terrascout lists the current free and commercial sources for any Australian location; describe your project or see the guide to free alternatives to Nearmap.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against the pages below on 12 October 2026. Archives keep digitising and prices change, so confirm on the source page before you rely on a detail.