The Shire of Gnowangerup is situated in the Great Southern area, approximately 354 kilometres from Perth and 140 kilometres from Albany via the Chester Pass Road.
It covers an area of approximately 5,000 square kilometres and is a prosperous grain growing and sheep producing area. The area is noted Australia wide for its merino sheep and attracts large crowds to the annual Stud Field Days.
There are three towns in the Shire of Gnowangerup, which service the local community and a growing tourism node at the edge of the Stirling Range National Park.
In the 19th century Sandalwood cutting played an important role in the Shire's history, with a sandalwood cutters camp being established in the Borden area in the 1840's. Colonists named the camp 'Poilyenum' the Noongar word for sandalwood. This provided jobs and income during the depression of the 1870's.
George Cheyne was actually the first person to acquire land in the Shire in the 1850's where the fertile slopes of the Pallinup River provided excellent grazing. Land clearing spread in the Shire after the opening of the Gnowangerup to Ongerup railway in 1913.