The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation. As well as that, it was an early convict settlement location in the early stages of Van Diemen's Land.
As a consequence of the images of the region and its attributes, it is regularly considered "outside" the tamed and agriculturally developed eastern side of the island of Tasmania.
The separation from the south west region, is that the south west has never had roads or other technical links back to the east coast. The west coast has been mined, it has had railways penetrate, and roads and power lines move through the landscape, it has been entered, but in many locations - where mines or other activities have closed, or settlements become abandoned, vegetation and time have in many cases hidden the locations.