Brisbane

Brisbane, the capital of the State of Queensland, is Australia’s third largest city, after Sydney (New South Wales) and Melbourne (Victoria). Brisbane is in the South East Queensland Region and spans the counties of Stanley, Canning, Cavendish, Churchill and Ward. Metropolitan Brisbane is centred on Brisbane’s historic central business district (CBD), situated on the Brisbane River, and extends from Moreton Bay to the Great Dividing Range. Brisbane’s CBD is governed by the local government area (LGA) of City of Brisbane; LGAs City of Brisbane, City of Ipswich, Logan City, Redland City, Lockyer Valley Region, Moreton Bay Region, Scenic Rim Region and Somerset Region comprise Greater Brisbane. As of 2021, the estimated population of the metropolitan area was more than 2.5 million.

The city claims 46 per cent of the overall Queensland economy and 9 per cent of national gross domestic product. Dominant industries include mining, education, health care and public service. The city is a sprawling settlement that has a large transportation network but also has more than two hundred parks and two botanic gardens. Local government has embarked on a multiple-year initiative to expand its efforts in sustainability and clean energy.

Brisbane has been and continues to be the destination for high-profile international gatherings — in business, entertainment and sport. Brisbane has hosted the Commonwealth Games (1982) and Goodwill Games (2001), the International Conference on Data Engineering (2013) and World Water Congress (2016). In 2014, Brisbane was chosen as the location for the G-20 summit.

Brisbane has become known as a tourist destination. People come to visit in order to take in the city’s historic sites, beaches, cultural areas and sporting venues. Another draw is the casino culture, which has led to Brisbane’s becoming known as “Brisvegas”.

Historical Perspective

Like other Australian cities, Brisbane was settled by Europeans in order to house convicts on land originally populated by the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. Sir Thomas Brisbane, the governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825, sent Surveyor General John Oxley to find another settlement site for secondary offenders from the Sydney penal colony. Oxley recommended what is now Brisbane in 1823, and the Moreton Bay site was settled one year later. A jail was built at Redcliffe and later moved to what is now Brisbane’s central business district, along a bend in the Brisbane River, because prison officials thought that the river bend would help prevent escape.

Brisbane was declared a town in 1834. Missionaries from Germany settled in the area as early as 1837, and free settlement began in 1842. Brisbane declared municipality, with its own local government, in 1859. It became the capital of Queensland that same year. The city suffered through two major disasters, the Great Fire in 1864 and Great Flood in 1893. Each time, new development replaced what had been lost.

In 1924, the City of Brisbane Act, passed by the state government, created a single Brisbane government from an amalgamation of twenty local authorities. Brisbane Council, with its first Lord Mayor, was established in 1925. City Hall opened in 1930.

Brisbane was the main headquarters for the South Pacific Allied forces during World War II. The main quarters of American General Douglas MacArthur was located for a time in Brisbane. An estimated one million U.S. troops passed through Brisbane during the war years. In 1942, a dispute between U.S. military personnel and Australian military civilians turned violent, causing one death and hundreds of injuries. This small-scale conflict was known for a time as the Battle of Brisbane. Post-war immigration into Australia favoured Brisbane, as refugees from Europe and Asia fled their war-torn countries. Brisbane, as the northernmost of Australia’s three biggest cities, was a prime target for such immigration.

A major flood in 1974 damaged some of the city’s most popular landmarks and hampered development, but the city responded with a large redevelopment programme. An increase in focus on infrastructure brought more residents and more visitors to the city. Brisbane in the 1980s was host to two high-profile international events. The 1982 Commonwealth Games, an Olympics-equivalent contest featuring athletes from the United Kingdom and other countries of the Commonwealth, and Expo ’88, the World Expo, brought an influx of visitors and a consequent upgrade of infrastructure to the city. Brisbane was also home to the 2014 gathering of the G-20, a regular gathering of the leaders of twenty of the world’s most powerful countries.

Also in the sporting arena, Brisbane was the host city for the 2001 Goodwill Games, an international alternative to the Olympics developed by American media mogul Ted Turner in response to the 1980 Olympics boycott by the United States and other countries. Brisbane’s was the fifth and final Games.

Geography and Climate

Brisbane is on a low-lying flood plain. The city has many hills, the highest of which, Mount Glorious, rises 680 metres. To the west is the Great Dividing Range, the third-longest land-based mountain range in the world. The Brisbane River runs through the city, providing many recreational activities. Another main geographical feature is Moreton Bay, the site of Brisbane’s founding. Many suburban creeks dot the city’s suburbs.

Like other Australian big cities, Brisbane is hot and warm most of the year. Brisbane is particularly sunny, recording an average of 280 days of sun each year. Summers in Brisbane are long, hot, and wet. The highest recorded temperature was 43.2 degrees Celsius, in 1940. Highs rarely top 35 degrees Celsius but are consistently in the upper 20s and lower 30s. Brisbane winters are short, warm and mild, with temperature highs averaging 22 degrees Celsius and minimums averaging 11 degrees Celsius; city records show only one instance of a sub-zero temperature, in 2007. The city often experiences harsh winds and rains. Records show an average of 125 days of year that feature precipitation. In 1974, the city recorded three straight weeks of rain and then a devastating flood. Brisbane also suffered major floods in 1893, 1974, 2011, and 2022.

Economy

The number of people employed in the greater Brisbane area, according to 2022 figures from the Brisbane City Council, was 759,000. The top employment industry is health care and social assistance, with 121,574 workers. Professional, scientific and technical services is second with nearly 89,605 employees, and education and training is third with 70,042. Mining is a major sector in Brisbane, with many of these jobs in the scientific and technical sectors. The city has made a high-profile effort to pursue clean and renewable energy. One programme aims to capture and store carbon emissions.

In the education sector, the University of Queensland is a major employer. The university is a world leader in research into Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), a method of genome editing used to modify crop strains to make them more pest-resistant. The university claims two Nobel Laureates, in Economics and Physiology or Medicine. Supercomputer technology developed at the university is used in more than two-thirds of the world’s magnetic resonance imaging machines. Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology are also located Brisbane.

The city has a “technological hub” that houses more than one hundred tech companies under one figurative roof. Agtech and biotech are just two of the sectors growing quickly in the city, which has embarked on the well-funded, high-profile Digital Brisbane Strategy, to attract even more high-tech industry to the area. Already among the achievements of this strategy is the launch of Coderdojo, an initiative to encourage young people to learn how to do digital coding.

Brisbane’s deep-water port and its proximity to Asia have made it an attractive investment for many companies specialising in world trade. Much of Queensland’s country-leading food, beverage, and agribusiness production goes through Brisbane in one way or another. Top companies based in Brisbane include Suncorp, an insurance company; Aurizon Holdings, a transportation company; Tatts Group, which specialises in online and bricks-and-mortar lottery programmes; Domino’s Pizza; and Star Entertainment Group, casino operators.

Demographics

The largest age group in Brisbane, according to the 2016 Census, is 35–39. This closely aligns with the median age, 36. Women, as a percentage of the population, led slightly in 2021 (50.8%). The average number of children per family was 1.8. Per household, the average number of people was 2.6.

Nearly 56.7 per cent of workers reported working full-time jobs. Those who worked part-time numbered 29.2 per cent. City figures show that 27 per cent of the population have a university degree. This is among the highest percentages of the country’s big cities.

More than 33 per cent of the Brisbane population was born in other countries; the four most populous countries of birth for Brisbane residents were New Zealand, England, China and India. More than 20 per cent of households speak a language other than English; among the most common of those languages are Mandarin, Vietnamese, Punjabi, and Cantonese.

Brisbane has a large public transport network, which features bus, ferry and rail services. A major upgrade began in 2017. The city has a cycle path network as well. Individual drivers are still the most prevalent on local roadways, with 60.8 per cent of workers in the 2021 Census responding that this was their preferred method of commuting.

Landmarks

Story Bridge, a steel cantilever bridge that spans the Brisbane River, is possibly the city’s most iconic landmark. The bridge serves as a transport option for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. The 74-metre climb to the top of the bridge is a popular tourist activity; during the two-hour excursion, climbers wear special climbing suits. Tours are on offer at dawn, at twilight, and during the day; one tour features a return to ground level via abseil, or rappel. Story Bridge connects Brisbane’s central business district with Kangaroo Point, another major tourist attraction, particularly for rock climbers.

Lone Pine is the world’s largest koala sanctuary. Koalas are the star attraction, with more than one hundred on site. The sanctuary also includes kangaroos and other Australian native species. In North Stradbroke Island and Moreton Island, Brisbane lays claims to two of the three sandiest beaches in the world. Moreton Island is a popular sport for snorkelling. Other water-based attractions include dolphin and whale watching. A short drive from Brisbane is the Australia Zoo, known for its iconic wildlife and internationally famous as the home of the “Crocodile Hunter”, Steve Irwin. Irwin’s parents founded the 40-hectare zoo in 1982, and Steve became known for his daring animal adventures until his death in 2006.

South Bank, a beneficiary of the revitalisation that took place after Expo ’88, houses the Cultural Centre and several well-known galleries and museums, including the Queensland Museum and the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art. Nearby is historic City Hall and the Shrine of Remembrance, both of which date to 1930.

Places of historic interest include the Boggo Road Gaol, formerly a place of prison execution, and the Old Windmill, built by convicts in 1828 and the oldest surviving building in Queensland. At the entrance to City Hall is King George Square, which opened in 1964. The square houses the King George V Memorial, dating to 1938; George V was king when City Hall opened. Also in King George Square is Speaker’s Corner, a designated free speech area. Three statues in this space are of prominent public speakers from Queensland’s past: One is Emma Miller, who was instrumental in gaining women the right to vote in Australia; one is Sir Charles Lilley, who at one time was a premier and then a chief justice of Queensland; and one is famous author Steele Rudd, known for his characters in a popular series of stories titled “On Our Selection”.

The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium opened in 1978. Brisbane, the city’s namesake, was a noted astronomer. In 1822, he established an observatory for mapping the southern skies, the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The planetarium is in Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha and includes the Cosmic Skydome, a 12.5-metre-diameter projection dome.

Suncorp Stadium is home to a professional soccer team, the Brisbane Roar; a professional rugby union team, the Queensland Reds; and a pro rugby league team, the Brisbane Broncos. The Gabba, another large sporting venue, plays host to two professional cricket teams, the Queensland Bulls and the Brisbane Heat, and one Australian Football League team, the Brisbane Lions.

Bibliography

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“Brisbane: Clean, Green, Sustainable 2017–2031.” Brisbane City Council, 23 Nov. 2018, www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/environment-waste/be-clean-green-brisbane/brisbane-clean-green-sustainable-2017-2031. Accessed 11 June 2024.

“Brisbane’s Economic Profile.” Brisbane City Council, 2023, www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2023-09/Brisbane%20Economic%20Profile%20September%202023-updated%20with%20publication%20number‗2.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2024.

“Brisbane’s Key Economic Facts.” Brisbane City Council, 5 Apr. 2024, www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/business-in-brisbane/data-and-economic-insights/brisbanes-key-economic-facts. Accessed 11 June 2024.

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