[1] The district is located within parts of the Barwon South West and the Grampians regions;[2][3] extending from the south-west corner of the state to Ballarat in the east and as far north as Ararat.

Other cities and towns in or on the edge of the district include: Coleraine, Merino, Heywood, Dunkeld, Penshurst, Macarthur, Koroit, Allansford, Ararat, Willaura, Beaufort, Learmonth, Ballarat, Snake Valley, Skipton, Moyston, Linton, Derrinallum, Lismore, Mortlake, Noorat, Cobden, Timboon, Beeac, Cororooke, Birregurra, Apollo Bay, and Lorne.

[6] Rainfall in summer is not uncommon but is only rarely heavy; though in March 1946 rains of up to 300 millimetres (12 in) in a week constitute easily the heaviest falls in the district.

Arrived at 6 p.m., made the boat fast in the middle of the river, and started three days' walk in the bush accompanied by H Camfield, Wm Dutton, five men, one black woman and 14 dogs, each man with a gun and sufficient quantity of damper to last for the voyage.In the 5 December entry Henty wrote:[9] On descending the hill we saw a native.

He was busily employed pulling the gums from the wattle trees.Both the Henty brothers and Captain Griffiths (who settled at Port Fairy in 1836), combined whaling and farming.

The first settlers avoided the Western District (preferring the forest country further west), as its countryside was then exceptionally dry: tussocks were so scanty it was said one could walk to Geelong without stepping on grass.

"[13] Earlier, on 4 March 1837, Governor Bourke in his visit to Melbourne addressed 120 Aboriginal people, "...whom he exhorted...to good conduct and attention to the Missionary.'

The Kulin were given blankets and four favoured men, who had been recommended for 'honorary distinctions' by [Police Magistrate Captain William] Lonsdale, were awarded brass plates.

"[14] By 1839, large numbers of homeless Aboriginal people from surrounding pastoral districts, were "....surviving whenever and however they could on the geographic, social and economic margins of the town [ie, Melbourne].

"[15] When Chief Protector of Aborigines George Augustus Robinson arrived in the town in the winter of 1839, "four to five hundred blacks of the Port Phillip tribes" were gathering at a camp site on the south bank of the Yarra River, suffering hunger and disease.

"[22] "It was government policy to encourage squatters to take possession of whatever Aboriginal land they chose,....that largely explains why almost all the original inhabitants of Port Phillip's vast grasslands were dead so soon after 1835".

"[24] With the Aboriginal population dispossessed of hunting grounds and their centuries-old management of fire having been disrupted for almost 15 years, the Colony experienced for the first time its largest ever bushfires, burning about 25% of the land area of Victoria on Black Thursday (1851) on 6 February 1851.

[25] On 30 March 2007, the Gunditjmara were recognised by the Federal Court of Australia to be the native title-holders of almost 140,000 hectares (350,000 acres) of Crown land and waters in the Portland area.

Tourism is the dominant industry in towns such as Lorne and Apollo Bay, which fill up during the summer as Melburnians are drawn by the stunning scenery and milder weather.