Portal:Queensland

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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 of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, southwest and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to its 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 subnational entity; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, including tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and 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 5.3 million, concentrated along the east coast, particularly in South East Queensland. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city. 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. 28.9% of the state's population were immigrants. (Full article...)

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Selected Article

An Australian dingo, taken at a wildlife sanctuary/rescue center.

The dingo is a type of wild dog, probably descended from the Southern-East Asian Wolf. It is commonly described as an Australian wild dog, but is not restricted to Australia, nor did it originate there. Modern dingoes are found throughout Southeast Asia, mostly in small pockets of remaining natural forest, and in mainland Australia, particularly in the north. They have features in common with both wolves and modern dogs, and are regarded as more or less unchanged descendants of an early ancestor of modern dogs. The name dingo comes from the language of the Eora Aboriginal people, who were the original inhabitants of the Sydney area.

Dingoes have received bad publicity in recent years as a result of the highly publicised Azaria Chamberlain disappearance and also because of dingo attacks on Fraser Island in Queensland. In 2001 around 200 dingoes lived on the island, and 20 people were attacked in the preceding six years. In April 2001 a nine-year-old child was killed in one such attack near Waddy Point on Fraser Island. This led to a cull of the animals which were actually protected by law.

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Selected images

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

Selected business

Macarthur Coal is a mining company based in Queensland, Australia, which was incorporated in October 1995. The company was founded by Ken Talbot, who was a former chief executive officer. It specialises in the production of metallurgical coal from mines in the Bowen Basin, specifically low-volatile pulverised injection coal used in steel making; essentially all the coal it produces is exported from Australia.

The company maintains a 73.3% ownership in all its major mine projects. As of 2010 it had open-cast mines at Coppabella, where the first coal was mined in October 1998, and 2.4 million tonnes of coal was produced from 2.9 million tonnes of material mined in 2009, and Moorvale (first coal March 2003, 2.2 million tonnes of coal from 2.9 million tonnes of material), and was opening a third mine at Middlemount with an initial target of 1.8 million tonnes of material per year. A fourth mine at Codrilla was selected for development in 2011.

In May 2011, the company announced that it had increased coal reserves estimates by 38% to 2.26 billion tonnes. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that despite being described in 1840, the chestnut-backed buttonquail was only confirmed in Queensland in 2020?
... 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?

...from the Brisbane Centre at Brisbane Airport, Airservices Australia manages the airspace over the northern half of Australia, representing 5% of the world’s total airspace?
...that the first female police officers of the Queensland Police were inducted in 1931?
...that goats left by early survey vessel mariners and the early guano vessels on Lady Musgrave Island were finally removed in 1974?
...that the Coat of arms of Queensland (pictured) includes a shield containing representations of Queensland's most abundant industries?