Bunbury, Western Australia in the context of South West (Western Australia)

The South West Land Division is one of five Land Divisions of Western Australia, a part of the cadastral divisions of Western Australia. It includes the cities of Perth, Albany, Bunbury, Busselton, Geraldton, and Mandurah. It also includes the regions of South West, Great Southern, Peel, most of the Wheatbelt, and the coastal areas of the Mid West.

The population of the division is about 2.2 million people, with 1.8 million living in the state capital, Perth, and a further 400,000 people living in the surrounding regional cities and rural areas. This leaves approx. 200,000 people living in the remainder of the state, most of them residing in the regional centres of Broome, Esperance, Kalgoorlie–Boulder, Karratha, and Port Hedland. Therefore, around 92% of Western Australia's population lives in this division.

Sir John Forrest GCMG (22 August 1847 – 2 September 1918) was an Australian explorer and politician. He was the first premier of Western Australia (1890–1901) and a long-serving cabinet minister in federal politics.

Forrest was born in Bunbury, Western Australia, to Scottish immigrant parents. He was the colony's first locally born surveyor, coming to public notice in 1869 when he led an expedition into the interior in search of Ludwig Leichhardt. The following year, Forrest accomplished the first land crossing from Perth to Adelaide across the Nullarbor Plain. His third expedition in 1874 travelled from Geraldton to Adelaide through the centre of Australia. Forrest's expeditions were characterised by a cautious, well-planned approach and diligent record-keeping. He received the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1876.