The Social Cohesion Compass is an interactive dashboard developed by the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute. It brings together local estimates of social cohesion and demographic information to help you explore patterns across Australia’s Local Government Areas (LGAs).
Whether you work in local government, community services, policy or research, or simply want to understand your community, the Compass offers a starting point for discussion, planning and further investigation.

• Explore your local area. View social cohesion scores on a map and see how your LGA compares with the national score and other LGAs in the same state and remoteness category.
• Look beyond the overall score. Explore the five domains of social cohesion: Belonging, Worth, Social Inclusion and Justice, Participation, and Acceptance and Rejection.
• Compare two communities. Select two LGAs to explore similarities and differences in their social cohesion scores over time.
• Understand the local context. Explore population characteristics, including age, countries of birth, education, employment and household income.
• Investigate relationships. Explore how overall social cohesion and its domains relate to income and education across LGAs.

The Compass draws on the Institute’s Mapping Social Cohesion surveys and Australian Bureau of Statistics data. Local social cohesion scores are modelled small area estimates. Demographic profiles and LGA boundaries use 2021 Census data and geography.

Scores are index values, not percentages. Consider them alongside national benchmarks, the spread of scores across LGAs and your knowledge of the community. Small differences or changes may reflect uncertainty in the estimates, and relationships between indicators do not establish cause and effect. Estimates are unavailable for some LGAs.

Further guidance on the data, methods and interpretation is available within the dashboard.