History

Local government in Western Tasmania evolved from locality based councils created in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

Gormanston Municipal Council (1907-1986)^[5] - became part of the Lyell Council

Lyell Municipal Council (1986-1993)^[6]

Queenstown Municipal Council (1907-1986)^[7] - became part of the Lyell Council

Strahan Municipal Council (1907-1993)^[8]

Zeehan Municipal Council (1907-1993)^[9]

On 2 April 1993, the municipalities of Lyell, Strahan and Zeehan were amalgamated to form the West Coast Council.^[2][10]

Historically the region was more oriented towards the North - due to the main transport being by either rail to Burnie up until the 1950s and 1960s, or by ship out of Strahan until the mid twentieth century. There were no land based transport routes to the south. Consequently, many residents who could afford shopping trips would go to Melbourne in Victoria, rather than Hobart in Tasmania.^{[citation needed]}

Some of the small population is located in the small cluster of towns near Macquarie Harbour - Strahan and Queenstown, these were linked in their connection with the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company

While further north Zeehan and Rosebery are settlements that developed from early quite separate mining operations, but were linked by their reliance upon the Emu Bay Railway There a number of ghost towns or abandoned mining communities in the West Coast, with some such as Crotty actually submerged under hydro-electric scheme dams.

Not in above list

• Corinna
• Cradle Mountain
• Granville Harbour
• Lake St Clair
• Macquarie Heads
• Southwest
• West Coast