Lake Burley Griffin has long been used as the division between residents living on the north or south side of Canberra.


But a new Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows the lake will soon literally become the centre of the Canberra population.


According to a map provided as part of the Regional Population Growth data release the centre of the population as at June 2012 was near the southern banks of Lake Burley Griffin in Yarralumla.


If this point continues in the same trajectory as it has in the past two decades, in a few years it will be in the lake.


Click on "Track the centre of population from 1991 to 2012" to watch the changes. Map courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.


ABS demographer Andrew Howe said the centre of the population could be defined as the location where half the residents lived north and half south.


He said during the past 20 years it had continued to move further north “ever since Tuggeranong stopped growing in the late 80s/early 90s”.


In 1991 the centre of the population was near Cotter Road before it travelled south for a few years.


Since 1994 the point has moved north each year travelling over the old Canberra brickworks through the early 2000s before edging closer to the lake in Yarralumla.


This represents the population change between 290,000 in 1991 and 374,700 in 2012.


Mr Howe said the growth of Gungahlin – with Bonner and Crace doubling in residents – was helping to keep this point travelling north.