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

Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland on 16 November 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited by Paul McGuiness, Hudson Fysh, Fergus McMaster and Arthur Baird. Initially the airline operated air mail services subsidised by the Australian government, linking railheads in western Queensland. Between 1926 and 1928 Qantas built several aircraft in Longreach and made the inaugural flight of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, departing from Cloncurry. Qantas Empire Airways Limited (QEA) was formed by Qantas and Britain's Imperial Airways in 1934. They flew internationally from May 1935, when the service from Darwin was extended to Singapore. As operations expanded with flying boat service World War disrupted air travel until 1943. In 1947, QEA was nationalised, with the Australian Labor government buying the shares. In the same year the airline took delivery of Lockheed 749 Constellations and these took over the trunk route to London. In 1958, Qantas became the second round-the-world airline, flying Super Constellations westward from Australia to London through Asia and the Middle East.

In 1956, Qantas ordered the Boeing 707-138 jet airliner and the first was delivered in June 1959. The first jet service operated by Qantas was on 29 July 1959 from Sydney to San Francisco via Nadi and Honolulu. On 5 September 1959 Qantas became the third airline to fly jets across the North Atlantic. In 1966, the airline diversified its business by opening the 450 room Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. In 1967, the airline placed orders for the Boeing 747 and Qantas Empire Airways changed its name to Qantas Airways. When Cyclone Tracy devastated the town of Darwin at Christmas 1974, Qantas established a world record for the most people ever embarked on a single aircraft when it evacuated 673 people on a single Boeing 747 flight. In March 1979, Qantas operated its final Boeing 707 flight from Auckland to Sydney, and became the only airline in the world to have a fleet that consisted of Boeing 747s only.

Selected images

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

...that the Gas Stripping Tower (pictured) in West End, Brisbane is only one its kind in Australia?
...that the 2014 G-20 Brisbane summit security arrangements included the largest police operation in Australia's history?
...that the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital is the largest hospital in Queensland?
...that Cape Melville has been described as a "lost world" where several animal species have existed in an isolated section of rainforest for millions of years?