This is alist of regions of Australia that are notAustralian states or territories. The most commonly known regionalisation is the governmental division of the state into regions foreconomic development purposes.
Others regionalisations include those made for purposes ofland management, such as agriculture or conservation; information gathering, such asstatistical ormeteorological. Although most regionalisations were defined for specific purposes and give specific boundaries, many regions will have similar names and extents across different regionalisations. As a result, the names and boundaries of regions can vary and may overlap in popular places.
Not all the regions in this list have official status as an economic or administrative region.
Aregionalisation of Australia is a system by whichAustralia is divided into regions. There are a great many different regionalisations, created for a range of purposes, including political, administrative, statistical and biological.
The most prominent regionalisation of Australia is the division into the variousstates and territories. For electoral purposes, theAustralian Senate uses states and territories, but theAustralian House of Representatives breaks the country intoDivisions. Each state is similarly divided into electoral "regions", "districts" or "provinces", each of which elects members to the house or houses of the state's parliament. Finally, the country is divided intolocal government areas, each of which is administered by a council.
Other administrative regionalisations may exist within each state. For example, the whole of mainlandWestern Australia other than thePerth metropolitan area, is divided intoregions for the purposes of administration of theRegional Development Commissions Act 1993.
For the purposes ofstatistical geography, theAustralian Bureau of Statistics uses theAustralian Standard Geographical Classification, a hierarchical regionalisation whose coarsest level is the states and territories, thenstatistical divisions,statistical subdivisions,statistical local areas, and finally,census collection districts.
Until recently, mostbiogeographical andphytogeographical regionalisations of Australia were individually defined for each state and territories; for example: Gwen Harden's botanical regionalisation ofNew South Wales; Orchard's "natural regions" regionalisation ofTasmania; andJohn Stanley Beard's division of Western Australia into Botanical Provinces and Botanical Districts.
More recently, two regionalisations that cover the entire country have been put in place. TheWorld Wildlife Fund's regionalisation of the world into 825 terrestrialecoregions created 40ecoregions in Australia. Within Australia, however, the de facto standard regionalisation is now theInterim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA). This divides Australia into 85 bioregions, which are further divided into 404 subregions.
There are a range of other regionalisations of Australia, including:
See also theBureau of Meteorology's NSW regions map.[1]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's NT region map[2]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's Queensland region map[3]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's South Australia regions map[4]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's Tasmania regions map[5]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's Victoria regions map[6]
The six official regions of Victoria are:[7]
See also theBureau of Meteorology's Western Australia regions map.[8]
The Western Australian system of regions defined by theGovernment of Western Australia for purposes of economic development administration, which excludes thePerth metropolitan area, is a series of nine regions.
The nine defined regions are: