This is a predominantly rural constituency of gently rolling hills, glens, forests, loughs and rivers revered by fishermen. Tourism is an important industry based on the attractive countryside, with other sources of employment including agriculture and associated processing industries along with some manufacturing such as the production of linen, hosiery and shirts.
The constituency is made up the areas covered by the district councils based around the two main towns in the seat: Omagh and Strabane. On 15 August 1998, four months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a car bomb planted by the Real IRA exploded in Omagh’s town centre, killing 29 people and injuring many more.
This seat is quite interesting: the electorate is nearly 65% Catholic, but at recent general elections the nationalist vote has been split between the SDLP and Sinn Féin.
On the unionist side the DUP has not put up a candidate and the Ulster Unionists have managed to win with barely a third of the votes cast. When the seat was contested by all four parties in the Assembly election, Sinn Féin came out on top; in the same situation at the 1996 Forum election, the SDLP was the victor.