I.

Introduction

Queensland, state in northeastern Australia, bounded on the north by the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the east by the Coral Sea (part of the Pacific Ocean), on the south by the state of New South Wales, on the southwest by the state of South Australia, and on the west by the Northern Territory. Queensland is the second largest of Australia’s states and territories (after Western Australia), covering about 1,727,200 sq km (666,880 sq mi), or 22.5 percent of Australia. Queensland has 7400 km (4600 mi) of coastline, with the magnificent Great Barrier Reef stretching along the shoreline in the Coral Sea. The capital of Queensland is Brisbane, on the southeastern coast.

II.

Land and Resources

The Great Dividing Range, a sprawling system of mountain ranges running the length of the state from north to south, separates Queensland into four regions: the eastern plains, islands, and reefs of the coast; the eastern highlands; the western plains; and the northwestern uplands. The eastern coast is notable for fine beaches and excellent farmland. Its most extraordinary feature is the coral reef chain of the Great Barrier Reef, which extends about 2,010 km (about 1,250 mi) from north to south. To the west of the Great Dividing Range is a region of rolling grasslands, which gives way to a vast, semiarid plain. Located at the northern end of the range, in the Bellenden Ker Range, is Mount Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest point, at 1,622 m (5,322 ft). The Atherton Plateau, an isolated highland area, also lies at the northern end of the range, and the Darling Downs, a fertile farming region, lies in the south.

Roughly bisected by the tropic of Capricorn, Queensland has a climate ranging from tropical (hot and humid) and subtropical (warm and somewhat humid) in the north to temperate (moderate in temperature and humidity) in the south, with increasing aridity west of the Great Dividing Range. Temperatures at coastal Brisbane average 21° C to 29° C (70° F to 84° F) in January and 10° C to 20° C (50° F to 68° F) in July. January temperatures in the interior routinely surpass 40° C (104° F). Queensland’s year-round warm and sunny climate has earned it the nickname “The Sunshine State,” although it also receives adequate rainfall: 90 percent of Queensland has at least 200 mm (8 in) of rain annually, and several parts of the state receive much more. As a result, Queensland has the largest livable area of any Australian state. Its size and climatic diversity make Queensland’s output of major farm products almost immune to seasonal influences.

III.

The People of Queensland

Queensland has a population (2004) of 3,882,037, giving it an average density of 2.2 persons per sq km (5.7 per sq mi), one of the lowest in Australia. Slightly more than one-quarter of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders live in Queensland: They totaled 70,070 at the 1991 census, or 2.4 percent of Queensland’s population.

Brisbane is Australia’s third largest city and one of its fastest growing; its population more than doubled between 1940 and 1986. Brisbane is unusual for an Australian capital city in that only 45 percent of the state’s total population lives there. By contrast, 70 percent of Victoria’s residents live in Melbourne, and 63 percent of New South Wales's residents live in Sydney. Brisbane is also one of the least ethnically diverse of Australia’s major cities; more than 80 percent of its population is Australian born.

Queensland has a greater number of large cities and towns than any other Australian state. The tourist center of Gold Coast is Queensland’s second city and one of the fastest growing in Australia. Other important cities are the port of Townsville; the resort of Toowoomba; the beef center of Rockhampton; and the port, industrial, and tourist center of Cairns.

IV.

Economy

In the 1970s and 1980s, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and tourism gave Queensland a consistently higher growth rate than the national average. Agriculture provided the original base for the state economy and remains important. In the early 1990s, about one-quarter of Australia’s total farm production came from Queensland, with grains, wool, meat, and sugar accounting for 70 percent of Queensland’s farm profits. Sugar, the major crop, is produced in fertile coastal valleys and on river flats, especially north of Mackay. Almost all of Australia’s raw sugarcane exports, which are the second largest in the world, come from Queensland. Queensland is also Australia’s leading producer of beef cattle, contributing about 40 percent of Australia’s annual beef and veal output. Usually prosperous, Queensland’s farmers struggled in the early 1990s against a volatile world sugar market and a severe drought.

Although agriculture remains a vital source of state income, the large-scale development of mining and manufacturing is changing the balance of Queensland’s economy. Queensland has one of the world’s largest known deposits of bauxite and also has rich reserves of coal, gold, copper, silver, lead, and zinc. Natural gas and oil are exploited, while known resources of uranium, tin, and mineral sands have not yet been tapped. The state’s rich minerals, along with its farm products, fuel Queensland’s manufacturing sector: Processed minerals, processed agricultural goods, machinery, ships, cement, and basic consumer goods are important manufactures.

The tourism and convention industry is also becoming increasingly important. Chief tourist attractions are the Great Barrier Reef and the resort towns south of Brisbane that merged to become the Gold Coast. Tourism is aided by international airports in Brisbane and Cairns.

V.

Government

Executive authority in Queensland is held by a governor who represents the British sovereign, but the governor has little power. Real executive power rests with a premier, selected by the majority party or coalition in the legislative assemby, and a cabinet, selected by the premier. The assembly has only one legislative chamber, made of 89 members elected for three-year terms. Queensland is the only Australian state with a unicameral (one-house) parliament, although both the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory also have unicameral parliaments. In the federal parliament, Queensland is represented by 26 members in the House of Representatives and 12 members in the Senate.

VI.

History

Queensland was known to Dutch navigators by the early 1600s. In 1770 the British explorer Captain James Cook visited Queensland’s eastern coast, near present-day Brisbane, and claimed it for Great Britain. Settlement began in 1824 with a colony for British convicts called Moreton Bay. At the time, the settlement was part of New South Wales, which was then a colony of Britain. In 1831 Moreton Bay peaked at 1100 convicts and in 1839 officially ended its penal function. The colony was renamed after Sir Thomas Brisbane, governor of New South Wales, and in 1842 began to welcome free settlers. From Brisbane, settlers continued to move north along the coast, with disastrous consequences for the local Aboriginal people. Perhaps 30 percent of all Australian Aborigines lived in the area, and clashes between settlers and Aborigines became common and violent. At least 20,000 Aborigines died in the fighting, compared with 1000 Europeans. European diseases also took a toll on the Aborigines.

In 1859 Brisbane and the rest of what is now Queensland was removed from New South Wales to become its own colony. Although Queensland suffered a severe economic crisis in the mid-1860s, discoveries of copper and gold set the stage for growth through the rest of the century and farming grew steadily as well. This progress was marred, however, by the practice of blackbirding—the importation, often by deception or force, of native Polynesians, historically referred to as Kanakas. The Kanakas were free in theory but in practice they were enslaved on sugar plantations, where they were often treated brutally. Blackbirding began about 1860 and ended when Australia became independent from Britain, in 1901. (Queensland became a state in the same year.) In later years, the large sugar estates were broken up, and small farming prospered, thus laying the foundation for Queensland’s network of strong regional centers.

Political parties emerged during the late 19th century, and the rural-based Labor Party dominated government for all but five years (1928-1933) between 1915 and 1957. In the 1950s both the national and state Labor parties split in two over the Petrov Affair, a controversy in which Labor members were accused of spying for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The split allowed the Country Party (later known as the National Party) and the Liberal Party to take power together. Their most notable leader was Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, whose administration (1968-1987) was notorious for unrestrained commercial development and opposition to the Aboriginal, trade union, and women’s rights movements. Bjelke-Petersen was deposed by his own party in 1987. In 1989 a public inquiry found that his administration had been riddled with corruption, a finding that helped the Labor Party return to power in 1989, for the first time in 32 years. The party received a second term in 1992. In 1996 a coalition of the National and Liberal parties returned to power.