The bush is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in many places, such as Australia, New Zealand, Sub-Saharan Africa, Canada, and Alaska.

In Australia it can include agricultural areas and regional settlements, and is more than a simple urban/rural contrast definition. The term is quite specific and does not include the even more remote areas that constitute the outback.

But in New Zealand, the term has a more specific connotation — that of isolated, heavily forested countryside, as opposed to the open coastal plains and tussock-covered high country. Bush always refers to areas of native trees rather than exotic forests.

In the North Island the largest areas of bush cover the main ranges stretching north-northeast from Wellington towards East Cape, notably including the Urewera Ranges, and the catchment of the Whanganui River. Significant stands remain in Northland and the ranges running south from the Coromandel Peninsula towards Ruapehu, and isolated remnants cap various volcanoes in Taranaki, the Waikato, the Bay of Plenty and the Hauraki Gulf.