Regions have been defined across Australia for various purposes – political, economic, statistical, agricultural and environmental. Some have been defined by national bodies; others have been established at a state or territory level. Use initial capitals and retain the official spelling; however, punctuation can be changed to comply with editorial style – for example, by replacing a hyphen between 2 words with an en dash:
Goldfields–Esperance not Goldfields-Esperance
See En dash for more details on when to use an en dash.
Use lower case for the terms statistical area and local government area in a general context, but use initial capitals when referring to a specific area:
The Australian Capital Territory is divided into 9 level 3 statistical areas.
Belconnen Statistical Area or Belconnen SA3
Hobart Local Government Area or Hobart LGA
