Carnarvon National Park is located in the Southern Brigalow Belt bioregion in the Maranoa Region in Central Queensland, Australia. The park is 593 km northwest of Brisbane. It began life as a 26,304-hectare (65,000-acre) reserve gazetted in 1932 to protect Carnarvon Gorge for its outstanding scenic values, its Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural heritage, and its geological significance.

Central Queensland is an imprecisely-defined geographical division of Queensland that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton. The region extends from the Capricorn Coast west to the Central Highlands at Emerald, north to the Mackay Regional Council southern boundary, and south to Gladstone. The region is also known as Capricornia. It is one of Australia's main coal exporting regions.