Regions of Western Australia

Western Australia (WA) is divided into regions according to a number of systems.
The most common system is the division of the state by the Government of Western Australia in 1993 into regions for economic development purposes, which comprises nine defined regional regions that exclude the Perth metropolitan region. However, there are a number of other systems, including those made for purposes of land management (such as agriculture and conservation), information gathering (such as statistical and meteorological), and election for political office.
The various different systems were defined for different purposes and at different times, and give specific boundaries, but although many of the different systems' regions have similar names, they have different boundaries; the names and boundaries of regions can and do vary between systems.
The Western Australian system of regional regions defined by the Government of Western Australia for purposes of economic development administration, which excludes the Perth metropolitan region, is a series of nine regional regions.
These nine regions were established by the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, which defined their extents and established Regional Development Commissions to promote their economic development. In defining the regions, an attempt was made to capture distinct socio-economic communities. For example, the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia has an economy based heavily on mining, whereas the Wheatbelt region is economically dependent on agriculture.
During the Western Australian government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, travel between regions – other than between Perth and Peel – was restricted, with police checkpoints set up at the borders. Only essential travel was allowed. At some checkpoints, police were assisted by army and State Emergency Service personnel; the army did not have any authority to prosecute or arrest. Remote communities and some "biosecurity areas" had further travel restrictions due to the lack of medical facilities and number of high risk community members. Some inter-regional restrictions were lifted on 18 May, and on 5 June all regional restrictions were removed except for remote Aboriginal communities.
On 31 January 2021, after a quarantine hotel security guard in Perth tested positive, a five-day lockdown, from 6 pm on 31 January until 6 pm on 5 February was declared. Schools scheduled to resume on 1 February were to remain closed for another week. The areas affected were: "the whole Perth metropolitan area, the Peel region and the South West region [...]."
The same region names as those used by the Regional Development Commissions Act (RDCA) are incorporated into the system used by Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), which uses 14 regions, so the boundaries of the two systems do not coincide. In some of the regions, the BOM designates the forecast area regions with a finer level of detail using points of the compass. Regions numbered 8 to 14 are usually known as forecast areas in the South West Land Division; coastal zones for sea forecasts are dealt with in the coastal regions of Western Australia.
The South West Land Division has 23 fire districts.
Under Australia's three-tiered system of government, Western Australia has four political regional schemes:
Many government departments maintain systems of regional and district breakdowns of the state for their own internal purposes.
The Department of Education defines the following:
The Department of Agriculture and Food defines the following:
Main Roads Western Australia defines the following:
The Department of Water defines the following:
The Department of Fisheries tends to separate the state into four main regions for the purpose of regulating recreational fishing:
The Department of Mines and Petroleum produces statistical data based on the Regional Development Commissions Act regionalisation schema.
Since the creation of the Department of Industry and Resources some rationalisation of mines administration has occurred, however the mineral fields and boundaries remain the same as when established.
For the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage / Western Australian Planning Commission there are three regions with regional planning schemes, covering only a small part of the state:
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services defines the following:
The Department of Health defines the following:
See also Category:Biogeography of Western Australia
There are a number of regionalisations that attempt to provide a regionalisation based on natural features. The best known of these are the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions, and the World Wildlife Fund's Ecoregions in Australia, and the "natural regions" of John Stanley Beard, all of which are based on biogeography. Other natural regionalisations included the drainage basins and catchments of river systems, and highly specialised regionalisations dealing with such matters as geology and soil systems.
Administrative regionalisations include Landcare Districts and the Department of Agriculture's "Land-use Zones". However the Department of Agriculture publications – Technical Bulletins – usually titled An inventory and condition report/survey... of a particular region are very specifically focused upon land systems that are based on natural features.
Western Australia is divided into approximately 90 land districts for cadastral purposes. There are five land divisions in Western Australia, as specified in Schedule 1 of the Land Administration Act 1997.
Western Australia covers the western third of the continent, although the winemaking regions are almost entirely situated in the south-western tip of the state. It has nine regions, and five nominated subregions for wine under the geographical indications legislation as determined by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation. Wine regions include:
Western Australia has the longest coastline of any state in Australia, at 10,194 kilometres (6,334 mi). The regions can be determined by the underlying geology, and in the case of the Bureau of Meteorology – features such as points and capes are useful indicators of coastal water forecasts.
Landgate publishes touring maps that include coastal zones including:
For the purposes of statistical geography, the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses the Australian Standard Geographical Classification, a hierarchical regionalisation that divides Western Australia into statistical divisions, then statistical subdivisions, statistical local areas, and finally, census collection districts.
Statistical divisions include:
The ABS produces regional profiles for the nine ABS statistical divisions, and the ten Development Commission regions.
In some cases, regions have been grouped into larger areas, to describe a larger area in a single term: