This article covers the Australian usage. In the UK, outstation or out-station can mean a type of bus garage

Bus garage

A bus garage or bus depot is a building where buses are stored and maintained. In many conurbations, bus garages are on the site of former car barns or tram sheds, where Streetcars or Trams were stored, and the operation transferred to buses...

.

Historically, an outstation was a subsidiary homestead

Homesteading

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...

 or other dwelling, on Australian sheep or cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 station

Station (Australian agriculture)

Station is the term for a large Australian landholding used for livestock production. It corresponds to the North American term ranch or South American estancia...

s (ranches) which were large enough to have more than a day's travel between different parts of the property.

However, since the Outstation movement

Outstation movement

The Outstation movement refers to the relocation of Indigenous Australians from towns to remote outposts on traditional tribal land.As described in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody a range of problems faced Aboriginal people living in towns.During the 1980s a number of groups...

 during the 1970s and 1980s, the term has more commonly come to refer to small settlements of Aboriginal Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

on their traditional homelands.

These settlements are comprised usually of Aboriginal people with close kinship ties and are located on lands that are significant to them for cultural reasons.