| Central West New South Wales |
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 The Lachlan River at Cowra |
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| LGA: | Various |
| State District: | Dubbo, Burrinjuck, Orange, Bathurst |
| Federal Division: | Calare |
The Central West region refers to the area west of the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. It has an area of 63,262 square kilometers [1].
Major population and service centres in the Central West include the cities of Dubbo, Bathurst and Orange. Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo are home to campuses of Charles Sturt University, the only local provider of higher education for the region.
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Cities and towns
The Central West includes three cities; Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo and other large towns which include Lithgow, Mudgee, Cowra, Parkes, Forbes and Wellington and other smaller towns such as Molong, Grenfell, West Wyalong, Condobolin, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra and Nyngan.
Terrain
The Central West's east is higher, wetter and hillier and supports orchards, vegetable-growing and pastoralism. The west is flatter and drier and supports grain crops and pastoralism.
Major highways
The Central West region is traversed by the Great Western Highway, the Mid-Western Highway, the Mitchell Highway, the Newell Highway and the Castlereagh Highway.
Media
The Central West has several radio stations, such as 105.1 2GZFM, 105.9 Star FM, 107.5 Community Radio, 103.5 Rhema FM and 1089AM — a commercial station that gets most of its programming from 2SM in Sydney.
Electronic media is represented by the ABC, and television by Prime, WIN, and Southern Cross Ten.
History
The Central West area was originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri people. The first white explorer, George Wilson Evans, entered the Lachlan Valley in 1815. He named the area the Oxley Plains after his superior the surveyor-general, John Oxley. In 1817 he deemed the area unfit for white settlement. A Military Depot was established not long after at Soldiers Flat near present day Billimari. Arthur Ranken and James Sloan, from Bathurst, were amongst the first white settlers on the Lachlan. They moved to the area in 1831.
In the 1850s the many gold prospectors passed through headed for gold fields at Lambing Flat (Young) and Grenfell.
References
- ^ Central West Region - the agricultural heart of New South Wales website of New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development, accessed November 12, 2006
External links
- Department of Local Government page for the region listing links to council pages
- Genealogy Wikia main page for the region
- "Open Directory" listing
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