Portal:Queensland

The Queensland Portal

Queensland (locally /ˈkwiːnzlænd/ KWEENZ-land, commonly abbreviated as QLD) is a state in northeastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south, respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to the state's north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subdivision of any country on earth; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, and include tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and white sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.

Queensland has a population of over 5.5 million, concentrated in South East Queensland, where nearly three in four reside. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city and comprising fully half of the state's population. Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland, the largest outside Brisbane being the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. 24.2% of the state's population were born overseas. The state has the highest inter-state net migration in Australia. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected Article

Palm Island, also known by the Aboriginal name Bukaman, is a tropical island with a resident community of about 2,000 people. The settlement is named variously Palm Island, the Mission, Palm Island Settlement or Palm Community. The island is situated 65 kilometres north-west of Townsville, on the east coast of Queensland, Australia 800 kilometres north of the Tropic of Capricorn. It is the main island of the Greater Palm group, and consists of small bays, sandy beaches and steep forested mountains rising to a peak of 548 metres. Neighbouring islands outside the Palm group include Rattlesnake Island and Magnetic Island.

Palm Island is often termed a classic "tropical paradise" given its natural endowments, but it has had a troubled history since the European settlement of Australia. For much of the twentieth century it was used by the Queensland Government as a settlement for Aboriginals considered guilty of such infractions as being "disruptive", being pregnant to a white man or being born with "mixed blood".

Archive • Read more...

Selected images

Image 1The McPherson Range at Lamington National Park in South East Queensland (from Queensland)
Image 2Returned World War II soldiers march in Queen Street, Brisbane, 1944 (from Queensland)
Image 3Kanaka workers in a sugar cane plantation, late 19th century (from Queensland)
Image 4The Gold Coast, Queensland's second-largest city and a major tourist destination (from Queensland)
Image 5Köppen climate types in Queensland (from Queensland)
Image 6The Mossman River, flowing through the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland (from Queensland)
Image 7Hill Inlet at the Whitsunday Islands. (from Queensland)
Image 8Fighting between Burke and Wills's supply party and Aboriginal Australians at Bulla in 1861 (from Queensland)
Image 9Skyline of the Brisbane central business district. Brisbane is a global city and the state's largest economic hub. (from Queensland)
Image 10Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, headquarters of the Supreme Court of Queensland and District Court of Queensland (from Queensland)
Image 11Commonly designated regions of Queensland, with Central Queensland divided into Mackay and Fitzroy subregions (from Queensland)
Image 12The Great Court at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Queensland's oldest university (from Queensland)
Image 13Cricket game at The Gabba, a 42,000-seat round stadium in Brisbane (from Queensland)
Image 14Aftermath of the 1861 Cullin-La-Ringo massacre in which 19 settlers were killed by Aboriginal people, the deadliest attack on settlers in the frontier wars (from Queensland)
Image 15Brisbane, capital and most populous city of Queensland (from Queensland)
Image 16The peninsula of Seventeen Seventy, Queensland, where Captain Cook landed in 1770 (from Queensland)
Image 17Gold mine at Ravenswood in North Queensland. Mining is one of the state's major industries (from Queensland)
Image 18Lake McKensie, K'gari (Fraser Island) (from Queensland)
Image 19Parliament House, seat of the Queensland Parliament (from Queensland)
Image 20Blackbirded South Sea Islanders on a Sugarcane plantation in Queensland. (from Queensland)
Image 21Captain James Cook claims the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain at Possession Island in 1770 (from Queensland)
Image 22The Ekka (the Royal Queensland Exhibition) is held each August at the Brisbane Showgrounds. (from Queensland)
Image 23Passenger train at Oxley railway station on the Ipswich/Rosewood line within the Queensland Rail City network (from Queensland)
Image 24The Great Barrier Reef, which extends along most of Queensland's Coral Sea coastline (from Queensland)
Image 25Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland's third largest city and a major tourist destination (from Queensland)
Image 26Cargo ships at the Port of Gladstone, Queensland's largest commodity seaport (from Queensland)
Image 27Government House, seat of the Governor (from Queensland)
Image 28Parade of troops in Brisbane, prior to departure for the Boer War in South Africa (from Queensland)

Selected business

La Boite Theatre Company is a major Australian theatre company based in Brisbane, Queensland. La Boite is the second largest theatre company in Queensland. Established in 1925, it occupies an important place in Queensland’s cultural history. It is known for its bold, contemporary approach towards theatrical texts, and its development of new Australian work. Its declared mission is to "produce and present exhilarating theatre that is alive to the present, extends and inspires artists, and invigorates the hearts and minds of audiences".

La Boite's mainstage production series is augmented by presentations of independent theatre work. In 2010, there were eleven productions, as well as various creative development and education programs.

La Boite is based at Brisbane’s Roundhouse Theatre, Australia’s only purpose-built theatre-in-the-round. Located in the Creative Industries Precinct of the Queensland University of Technology in Kelvin Grove. It seats 400, or 340 in thrust staging. The company moved into this new venue in February 2004, leaving its smaller theatre-in-the-round building in Hale Street, Milton, where it had been since 1972. (Full article...)

More selected

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that in its two years of existence, the Hunter River Railway Company initiated construction on what would eventually become the Great Northern Railway connecting Sydney to Queensland?
... that Lachlan Murdoch was forced to resign as a director of Prime Media Group because the company owned a radio station on Queensland's Sunshine Coast?

More did You Know?

...that a central state-based authority to coordinate the generation and distribution of electrical power in Queensland was not established until 1938?
...that the Sheng Neng 1's impact on the Great Barrier Reef in 2010 created the reef's longest known grounding scar?
...that Dunk Island (pictured) is the largest island in the Family Islands and was named by Captain James Cook on the 8 June 1770?
...that the Georgina River has a catchment which is roughly the same size as the state of Victoria but only has a mean annual flow of about 0.7 km³?