The Shire of Kalamunda is situated on the edge of the Darling scarp some 24 km from Perth.  It is 349 square kilometres in area.  Of this 249 square kilometres is State Forest, water catchment areas, National Parks and Regional Open Space.  There are 115 hectares of developed parks and recreation reserves.  The balance is used for urban and rural activities including extensive horticulture.

The Shire provides opportunities for residents to enjoy a range of lifestyles.  There are concentrated urban areas, oversize residential lots, special rural areas that allow for hobby farming and rural areas for orchards, grazing and horticulture.

Geographically Kalamunda can be divided into three distinct districts.  The foothills of the coastal plain, the escarpment and the eastern districts.

The foothills area contains a mixture of new and some older housing developments, long established orchards and special rural or country living developments, including hobby farms and rural and residential uses.  It includes the urban localities of Maida Vale, High Wycombe, Forrestfield and Wattle Grove.

The Escarpment, noted for its splendid views overlooking the coastal plain, is the historical centre of the Shire.  It contains the urban localities of Gooseberry Hill, Kalamunda and Lesmurdie.

The Eastern Districts is an area of integrated rural and suburban small holdings with an extensive block of State Forest and Water Catchment extending east to the boundary with the Shire of York.

The main rural activity is fruit growing centred on Piesse Brook, Walliston, Bickley, Carmel and Pickering Brook.  There are more than 200 commercial orchards producing apples, pears, nashi, citrus, olives and more recently table and wine grapes.  It is probably the second largest fruit producing area in the State.

The Darling Range is part of an ancient plateau at least 200 million years old; parts of it are billions of years old.  The Darling Range ends at the Darling Fault, the site where the ancient continent of Gondwanaland split up into Australia and India about 60 million years ago.

The Bibbulmun Track starts in Kalamunda.  It is the longest distance walking track in the Western Australia stretching to Albany and one of the great walking tracks of the world.