We Mapped Every Suburb in Australia Affected by Aircraft Noise

You are looking at your dream house. Great street. Good school nearby. The price feels right. Then a plane flies over at 400 feet and the windows rattle.

Aircraft noise affects property values. Everyone knows this. But until now, nobody had mapped exactly which pockets of Australia sit inside official noise zones, at the street level.

We built that map. Using government data from eight sources and covering 28 airports, we classified every one of Australia’s 368,255 microburbs by aircraft noise exposure.

Adelaide is the most affected city

This surprised us. Not Sydney. Not Melbourne. Adelaide.

Adelaide Airport sits right next to established suburbs. West Beach, Glenelg North, Henley Beach South, Brooklyn Park. 840 microburbs in the Adelaide region fall inside ANEF noise zones. That is more than Sydney (18), Melbourne (346), and Perth (436).

Why is Sydney’s number so low? Geography. Sydney Airport’s noise contours fall mostly over Botany Bay and industrial land. The actual noise annoyance in suburbs like Marrickville and Sydenham is real, but the official ANEF contours do not capture it well. ANEF measures annual averages. It does not tell you about the 6am departure that wakes you every Tuesday.

Military bases matter more than you think

RAAF Base Amberley in Ipswich, Queensland has 426 microburbs in its noise zones. That is more than Melbourne Airport. Fast jets produce wider noise contours than commercial aircraft. If you are buying in the Ipswich or Bremer Valley region, the RAAF base shapes property values as much as the river does.

RAAF Williamtown near Newcastle, RAAF Richmond in western Sydney, RAAF Edinburgh near Adelaide, and RAAF Townsville all affect surrounding residential areas.

The 20-25 ANEF zone is where the money question lives

Under Australian Standard AS 2021, homes can be built in the 20-25 ANEF zone, but they need sound insulation. This is the “conditionally acceptable” band. 1,613 microburbs (51% of all affected areas) sit in this zone.

This is the zone where property buyers need to pay attention. You can buy a home here. It will be cheaper than the equivalent property outside the contour. But you need to understand what you are getting. Walls built to noise attenuation standards. Double glazing. The knowledge that the next ANEF update could shift the contour boundary.

What does this mean for you?

If you are buying near any of Australia’s 28 mapped airports, check the ANEF zone. It is not just about whether you can hear planes. It is about what the planning system says about your land’s future use.

A property in the 20-25 ANEF zone in Tullamarine might be $50,000 cheaper than a comparable home in Essendon. That discount is real and it persists. Whether it represents good value or a trap depends on your tolerance for noise and your investment horizon.

We have built an interactive map showing every ANEF contour across all 28 airports. You can search by airport, zoom to your suburb, and see exactly where the boundaries fall.

This is the first time this data has been consolidated at the microburb level for all of Australia. We will be adding it to Microburbs property reports in the coming weeks.