Brisbane City, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Notes:
The City of Brisbane is a local government area that has jurisdiction over the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Brisbane is located in the county of Stanley and is the largest city followed by Ipswich with bounds in part of the county.



Brisbane is the capital of and the most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland, and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2.5 million, and the South East Queensland metropolitan region, centred on Brisbane, encompasses a population of more than 3.6 million.



The Brisbane central business district stands on the historic European settlement and is situated inside a peninsula of the Brisbane River, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) from its mouth at Moreton Bay, a bay of the Coral Sea. The metropolitan area extends in all directions along the hilly floodplain of the Brisbane River Valley between Moreton Bay and the Taylor and D'Aguilar mountain ranges. It sprawls across several of Australia's most populous local government areas (LGAs)?most centrally the City of Brisbane, which is by far the most populous LGA in the nation. The demonym of Brisbane is "Brisbanite", whilst common nicknames include "Brissy", "River City" and "Brisvegas".



One of the oldest cities in Australia, Brisbane was founded upon the ancient homelands of the indigenous Turrbal and Jagera peoples. Named after the Brisbane River on which it is located?which in turn takes its name from Sir Thomas Brisbane, the Governor of New South Wales at the time of the city's founding?the area was chosen as a place for secondary offenders from the Sydney Colony. The Moreton Bay penal settlement was founded in 1824 at Redcliffe, 28 kilometres (17 mi) north of the central business district, but was soon abandoned and moved to North Quay in 1825, opening to free settlement in 1842. Brisbane was chosen as the capital when Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony from New South Wales in 1859. During World War II, Brisbane played a central role in the Allied campaign and served as the South West Pacific headquarters for United States Army General Douglas MacArthur.



A diverse city with 32.2% of its metropolitan population being foreign born, Brisbane is ranked as a world city, and ranks highly in ratings of livable cities. Brisbane is well known for its distinct Queenslander architecture which forms much of the city's built heritage. Brisbane was also the origin of the Anzac Day tradition through the works of Canon David John Garland.



A transportation hub, Brisbane is served by a large suburban rail network, popular bus and ferry networks as well as Australia's third-busiest airport and seaport.



Several large cultural, international and sporting events have been held at Brisbane, including the 1982 Commonwealth Games, World Expo '88, the final Goodwill Games in 2001, and the 2014 G-20 summit.



Brisbane is a popular tourist destination, serving as a gateway to the state of Queensland, particularly to the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, which are home to numerous popular surf beaches, located immediately south and north of Brisbane respectively. Major landmarks and attractions include South Bank Parklands and the Queensland Cultural Centre including the Queensland Museum, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, City Hall and King George Square, the Story Bridge, the City Botanic Gardens and Parliament of Queensland, ANZAC Square, Howard Smith Wharves, Fortitude Valley, West End, Teneriffe woolstores precinct, Roma Street Parkland, New Farm Park and the Brisbane Powerhouse, St John's Cathedral, Mount Coot-tha Lookout and Botanic Gardens, the Brisbane River and floating Riverwalk, as well as Moreton Bay, its islands including Moreton, North Stradbroke and Bribie islands, and coastal suburbs such as the Redcliffe Peninsula.



19th century

The Moreton Bay area was initially explored on behalf of European colonisers by Matthew Flinders. On 17 July 1799, Flinders landed at what is now known as Woody Point, which he named "Red Cliff Point" after the red-coloured cliffs visible from the bay. In 1823 Governor of New South Wales Sir Thomas Brisbane instructed that a new northern penal settlement be developed, and an exploration party led by John Oxley further explored Moreton Bay.



Oxley claimed, named, and explored the Brisbane River as far as Goodna, 20 km (12 mi) upstream from the Brisbane central business district.[33] Oxley recommended Red Cliff Point for the new colony, reporting that ships could land at any tide and easily get close to the shore. The party settled in Redcliffe on 13 September 1824, under the command of Lieutenant Henry Miller with 14 soldiers (some with wives and children) and 29 convicts. However, this settlement was abandoned after a year and the colony was moved to a site on the Brisbane River now known as North Quay, 28 km (17 mi) south, which offered a more reliable water supply. The newly selected Brisbane region, at the time, was plagued by mosquitos.



After visiting the Redcliffe settlement, Sir Thomas Brisbane then travelled 45 km (28 mi) up the Brisbane River in December 1824. Governor Brisbane stayed overnight in a tent and often landed ashore, bestowing upon Brisbane City the distinction of being the only Australian capital city set foot upon by its namesake. Chief Justice Forbes gave the new settlement the name of Edenglassie before it was named Brisbane.



Non-convict European settlement of the Brisbane region commenced in 1838 and the population grew strongly thereafter, with free settlers soon far outstripping the convict population. German missionaries settled at Zions Hill, Nundah as early as 1837, five years before Brisbane was officially declared a free settlement. The band consisted of ministers Christopher Eipper (1813?1894) and Carl Wilhelm Schmidt and lay missionaries Haussmann, Johann Gottried Wagner, Niquet, Hartenstein, Zillman, Franz, Rode, Doege and Schneider. They were allocated 260 hectares and set about establishing the mission, which became known as the German Station. Later in the 1860s many German immigrants from the Uckermark region in Prussia as well as other German regions settled in the Bethania- Beenleigh and Darling Downs areas. These immigrants were selected and assisted through immigration programs established by John Dunmore Lang and Johann Christian Heussler and were offered free passage, good wages, and selections of land.



The penal settlement under the control of Captain Patrick Logan flourished with the numbers of convicts increasing dramatically from around 200 to over 1000 men. He created a substantial settlement of brick and stone buildings, complete with school and hospital. He formed additional outstations and made several important journeys of exploration. Logan is infamous for his extreme use of the cat o' nine tails on convicts. The maximum allowed limit of lashes was 50; however, Logan regularly applied sentences of 150 lashes.



Free settlers entered the area over the following five years, and by the end of 1840, Robert Dixon began work on the first plan of Brisbane Town, in anticipation of future development. Queensland was separated from New South Wales by letters patent dated 6 June 1859, proclaimed by Sir George Ferguson Bowen on 10 December 1859, whereupon he became Queensland's first governor, with Brisbane chosen as its capital.[citation needed]



20th century

Royal Australian Air Force recruits marching along Queen Street, August 1940

Over 20 small municipalities and shires were amalgamated in 1925 to form the City of Brisbane, governed by the Brisbane City Council. A significant year for Brisbane was 1930, with the completion of Brisbane City Hall, then the city's tallest building and the Shrine of Remembrance, in ANZAC Square, which has become Brisbane's main war memorial. These historic buildings, along with the Story Bridge which opened in 1940, are key landmarks that help define the architectural character of the city.



South Bank during World Expo 88

During World War II, Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur, chief of the Allied Pacific forces, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. MacArthur had previously rejected use of the University of Queensland complex as his headquarters, as the distinctive bends in the river at St Lucia could have aided enemy bombers. Also used as a headquarters by the American troops during World War II was the T & G Building. About one million US troops passed through Australia during the war, as the primary co-ordination point for the South West Pacific. In 1942, Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians, which resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane.



Postwar Brisbane had developed a "big country town" stigma, an image the city's politicians and marketers were very keen to remove. In the late 1950s, an anonymous poet known as The Brisbane Bard generated much attention on the city which helped shake this stigma. Despite steady growth, Brisbane's development was punctuated by infrastructure problems. The state government under Joh Bjelke-Petersen began a major program of change and urban renewal, beginning with the central business district and inner suburbs. Trams in Brisbane were a popular mode of public transport until the network was closed in 1969, leaving Melbourne and one line in Adelaide as the last Australian state capitals to operate trams until Sydney begun operation of a new system in 1997.[clarification needed]



The 1974 Brisbane flood was a major disaster which temporarily crippled the city. During this era, Brisbane grew and modernized, rapidly becoming a destination of interstate migration. Some of Brisbane's popular landmarks were lost to development in controversial circumstances, including the Bellevue Hotel in 1979 and Cloudland in 1982. Major public works included the Riverside Expressway, the Gateway Bridge, and later, the redevelopment of South Bank, starting with the Queensland Art Gallery.



Brisbane hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and the 1988 World Exposition (known locally as World Expo 88). These events were accompanied by a scale of public expenditure, construction, and development not previously seen in the state of Queensland. Brisbane's population growth far exceeded the national average in the last two decades of the 20th century, with a high level of interstate migration from Victoria and New South Wales.



Geography

Brisbane is in the southeast corner of Queensland. The city is centred along the Brisbane River, and its eastern suburbs line the shores of Moreton Bay, a bay of the Coral Sea in the Pacific Ocean. The greater Brisbane region is on the coastal plain east of the Great Dividing Range, with the Taylor and D'Aguilar ranges extending into the metropolitan area. Brisbane's metropolitan area sprawls along the Moreton Bay floodplain between the Gold and Sunshine coasts, approximately from Caboolture in the north to Beenleigh in the south, and across to Ipswich in the south west.



The Brisbane River is a wide tidal estuary and its waters throughout most of the metropolitan area are brackish and navigable. The metropolitan area is also traversed by several other rivers and creeks including the North Pine and South Pine rivers in the northern suburbs, which converge to form the Pine River estuary at Bramble Bay, the Caboolture River further north, the Logan and Albert rivers in the south-eastern suburbs, and tributaries of the Brisbane River including the Bremer River in the south-western suburbs, Breakfast Creek in the inner-north, Norman Creek in the inner-south, Oxley Creek in the south, Bulimba Creek in the inner south-east and Moggill Creek in the west.



The waters of Moreton Bay are relatively calm, being sheltered from large swells by Moreton, Stradbroke and Bribie islands, whereas unsheltered surf beaches lie on the eastern coasts of the bay islands and on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast to the north and south.



The city of Brisbane is hilly. The urban area, including the central business district, are partially elevated by spurs of the Herbert Taylor Range, such as the summit of Mount Coot-tha, reaching up to 300 m (980 ft) and the smaller Enoggera Hill. Other prominent rises in Brisbane are Mount Gravatt and nearby Toohey Mountain. Mount Petrie at 170 m (560 ft) and the lower rises of Highgate Hill, Mount Ommaney, Stephens Mountain, and Whites Hill are dotted across the city. Also, on the west, are the higher Mount Glorious, (680 m), and Mount Nebo (550 m).



The city is on a low-lying floodplain. Many suburban creeks criss-cross the city, increasing the risk of flooding. The city has suffered three major floods since its founding, in February 1893, January 1974 (partially a result of Cyclone Wanda), and January 2011 (partially a result of Cyclone Tasha).



Urban structure

The steel cantilever Story Bridge was constructed in 1940 to connect Fortitude Valley to Kangaroo Point. In the image on the right, the bridge is illuminated in blue for ovarian cancer awareness.

The Brisbane central business district (CBD) lies in a curve of the Brisbane river. The CBD covers 2.2 km2 (0.8 sq mi) and is walkable. Central streets are named after members of the House of Hanover. Queen Street is Brisbane's traditional main street. Streets named after female members (Adelaide, Alice, Ann, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Mary) run parallel to Queen Street and Queen Street Mall (named in honour of Queen Victoria) and perpendicular to streets named after male members (Albert, Edward, George, William). The city has retained some heritage buildings dating back to the 1820s. The Old Windmill in Wickham Park, built by convict labour in 1824, is the oldest surviving building in Brisbane. The Old Windmill was originally used for the grinding of grain and a punishment for the convicts who manually operated the grinding mill. The Old Windmill tower's other significant claim to fame, largely ignored, is that the first television signals in the southern hemisphere were transmitted from it by experimenters in April 1934?long before TV commenced in most places. These experimental TV broadcasts continued until World War II. The Old Commissariat Store, on William Street, built by convict labour in 1828, was originally used partly as a grainhouse, has also been a hostel for immigrants and used for the storage of records. Built with Brisbane tuff from the nearby Kangaroo Point Cliffs and sandstone from a quarry near today's Albion Park Racecourse, it is now the home of the Royal Historical Society of Brisbane. It contains a museum and can also be hired for small functions.[

Latitude: -27.47, Longitude: 153.12

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