The Buchanan River is a river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 in the Wheatbelt region

Regions of Western Australia

Regionalisations of Western Australia are systems by which Western Australia is divided into distinct geographic regions. The most commonly known regionalisation is the governmental division of the state into regions for economic development purposes, of which there are nine.Other regionalisations...

 of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

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The river rises in the hills to the southern side of the Yackrkine Range and flows in a westerly direction then past Muggerrugging Rock then it turn to the south-west and finally discharges into the Arthur River

Arthur River (Western Australia)

The Arthur River is located in the south west of Western Australia.The headwaters of the Arthur river is located about 30km North of Wagin in the Arthur River Nature Reserve near the small settlement of Arthur River on Albany Highway....

 of which it is a tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 between the towns of Piesseville

Piesseville, Western Australia

Piesseville is a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, south-east of Perth on the Great Southern Highway between Narrogin and Wagin. It is also on the Great Southern Railway...

 and Wagin

Wagin, Western Australia

Wagin is a town and shire in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, approximately 225 km south-east of Perth on the Great Southern Highway between Narrogin and Katanning. It is also on State Route 107. The main industries are wheat and sheep farming.-History:The name of the town is...

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The river was named in 1835 by the Surveyor General John Septimus Roe

John Septimus Roe

John Septimus Roe was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, and a Member of Western Australia's Legislative and Executive Councils for nearly 40 years.-Early life:...

, who named it after the London gentleman, Walter Buchanan, who had a stron connection with the fledgling Swan River Colony

Swan River Colony

The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...

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The river's catchment falls within the Blackwood catchment's Beaufort zone as part of the Dellyanine system. The system is composed of undulating rises and low hills on granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and was previously a wandoo

Wandoo

Wandoo is the common name for a number of Western Australian Eucalyptus species, all of which have smooth white bark.The original "wandoo" is Eucalyptus wandoo. Other species have been given this name because of a perceived likeness with E. wandoo...

 sheoak woodland but has now mostly been cleared for agriculture.