The Aboriginal name is pronounced Kal-ah-ree, but the pronunciation Kul-air is established for the division.
Lithgow, Bathurst and Oberon, which tend to favour Labor, were transferred to the neighbouring seat of Macquarie.
At the 2007 federal election, Calare was won by the Nationals' representative John Cobb on a margin of 12.1 percent.
The 2009 redistribution of NSW moved the boundaries back east, to again include Lithgow, Bathurst and Oberon.
The division currently stretches from Mudgee, Gulgong, Dubbo, Wellington in the north-west, to Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow and Oberon in the south-east and Canowindra in the south-west.