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AroundSchools zone data · August 2026

Australia's School Zones, Measured: From 0.4 km² to Nearly the Size of Tasmania

How big is the zone your house sits in? We measured every official government school zone published in NSW, VIC, QLD and SA — 5,038 polygons — using proper geodesic areas. The city–country gap is staggering: Parramatta HS (NSW) draws from just 0.4 km², while Willyama HS in outback NSW covers 59,248 km² — about 148,000 times larger, and 87% the size of Tasmania.

5,038

zones measured

0.4 km²

smallest secondary zone

59,248 km²

largest secondary zone

148,000×

largest vs smallest

The 15 smallest secondary zones in Australia

A tiny zone usually means fierce demand — and a real-estate premium inside the boundary.

# Zone Area (km²)
1 Parramatta HS NSW 0.4
2 Newtown HS of Performing Arts NSW 2
3 Sefton HS NSW 2.2
4 St Marys Snr HS NSW 2.3
5 Truganina P-9 College VIC 3
6 Williamstown High School VIC 3.2
7 Westfields Sp HS NSW 3.5
8 Chifley Shalvey NSW 3.7
9 Tagai State College - Thursday Island Secondary QLD 3.7
10 Princes Hill Secondary College VIC 3.8
11 James Busby HS NSW 3.8
12 Chifley Bidwill NSW 3.9
13 Miller Technology HS NSW 4
14 Macleod College VIC 4.1
15 Fairvale HS NSW 4.4

Which zone is your address in?

Type your address into our free checker to see every government school zone covering your home — and compare the schools inside it.

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The largest secondary zones

Outback zones are astonishingly vast — for some students the "local" school is hundreds of kilometres away.

Willyama HS NSW · 59,248 km² Bourke HS NSW · 56,467 km² Wilcannia CS NSW · 43,928 km² Cobar HS NSW · 31,650 km² Coomealla HS NSW · 27,205 km² Ivanhoe CS NSW · 25,938 km² Nyngan HS NSW · 19,761 km² Balranald CS NSW · 17,424 km² Hay War Memorial HS NSW · 14,480 km² MSC Carol Ave NSW · 13,517 km²

State by state (secondary zones)

Median zone sizes differ six-fold: Victoria draws the tightest boundaries, Queensland the widest.

New South Wales

median 107.1 km² · 441 zones

  1. Parramatta HS 0.4 km²
  2. Newtown HS of Performing Arts 2 km²
  3. Sefton HS 2.2 km²
  4. St Marys Snr HS 2.3 km²
  5. Westfields Sp HS 3.5 km²

Queensland

median 381.1 km² · 273 zones

  1. Tagai State College - Thursday Island Secondary 3.7 km²
  2. Kingston State College 4.9 km²
  3. Mount Gravatt SHS 5.3 km²
  4. Brisbane SHS 5.8 km²
  5. Brisbane South State Secondary College 6 km²

Victoria

median 58.1 km² · 308 zones

  1. Truganina P-9 College 3 km²
  2. Williamstown High School 3.2 km²
  3. Princes Hill Secondary College 3.8 km²
  4. Macleod College 4.1 km²
  5. Noble Park Secondary College 4.8 km²

The smallest primary school zones

Across 4,010 primary zones nationally, the median area is 22.4 km².

Australia St IS NSW · 0.2 km² Tagai State College - Stephen Island Campus QLD · 0.4 km² Movelle Primary School VIC · 0.6 km² Tagai State College - Poruma Campus QLD · 0.6 km² Nicholson St PS NSW · 0.7 km² Parramatta PS NSW · 0.7 km² Sutherland NPS NSW · 0.7 km² Cabbage Tree IPS NSW · 0.7 km² Darlinghurst PS NSW · 0.8 km² Bronte PS NSW · 0.8 km²

Methodology

Boundaries are the most recent published by each state education department (VIC and QLD: 2026 school year; SA: 2023; NSW: current published dataset). Areas are computed with spherical geometry (spherical excess), immune to the latitude distortion of flat-map methods; multi-part zones are summed, holes subtracted, and 0.05 km² digitisation slivers (2 polygons) excluded. WA, TAS, NT and the ACT do not publish machine-readable zone data and are not covered. Licensed CC BY 4.0 — cite AroundSchools and reuse freely.

Download the full dataset (all 5,038 zones)

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