It covers an area of 39 square kilometres (15 sq mi) in outer eastern Melbourne, and includes the suburbs of Bayswater, Heathmont, Kilsyth South and The Basin, and parts of Bayswater North, Boronia, Ringwood and Wantirna.

It lies within the Eastern Metropolitan Region of the upper house, the Legislative Council.

[1] Bayswater was created as a notionally marginal Labor seat in a redistribution for the 1992 state election.

It replaced the abolished electorate of Ringwood, which had been held by Labor MP and Kirner government Minister for Community Services Kay Setches since 1982.

The area had been traditionally Liberal prior to Setches' election; she had been the first Labor member to hold Ringwood.