Local Government Areas in Western Australia
There are 142 Local Government Areas (LGA) in Western Australia , including Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands . They are organized in the umbrella organization Western Australian Local Government Association , which represents and supports their interests, but is not itself a government body. The mandate and duties of the Local Governments are regulated in a 1995 Act ( Local Government Act 1995 ).
These administrative districts can extend to both urban and rural areas. To characterize it, the name suffixes City for urban areas, Shire for rural regions or Town for smaller self-governing cities are assigned.
A local government area can encompass the center of a metropolis; the only example in Western Australia is Perth City . The suburbs of the Perth metropolitan area are administered by a total of 30 Local Governments. Some of them cover entire districts of Perth that have grown together with the inner city, for example Bayswater City . Others, for example the Swan City , combine numerous smaller satellite towns into a single unit within a historically grown geographical region.
In the case of small and medium-sized towns in Western Australia, the rural surroundings are often included (examples: Broome Shire , Exmouth Shire ).
There are Local Government Areas which, apart from a small town (administrative headquarters), only cover bushland and coastlines, for example the Shark Bay Shire .
- Former LGA
