Queensland
State in northeast Australia, including the adjacent islands in the
Pacific Ocean and in the Gulf of Carpentaria; bordered on the
west by Northern Territory, on the southwest by South Australia,
on the south by New South Wales, on the east by the Pacific Ocean,
and on the extreme northwest by the Gulf of Carpentaria
Area:
1,727,200 sq km/666,699 sq mi
Capital:
Brisbane
Towns and Cities:
Toowoomba, Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Mackay, Ipswich,
Maryborough
Features:
Second-largest of the Australian states; Great Dividing Range, including
Mount Bartle Frere 1,622 m/5,321 ft; Great Barrier Reef (collection
of coral reefs and islands about 2,000 km/1,250 mi long, off the
east coast); Mount Isa mining area; Gold Coast, south of Brisbane;
Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane.
Products:
Sugar, wheat, pineapples, beef, cotton, wool, tobacco, copper, gold,
silver, lead, zinc, coal, nickel, bauxite, uranium, natural gas,
oil, fish
Population:
(1996) 3,368,850, concentrated in the southeast
History:
Visited by Captain Cook in 1770; first settlement a penal colony at
Moreton Bay in 1824; opened to free settlers in 1842; part of
New South Wales from 1788 to 1859, when it became self-governing.
Physical
Queensland's coastline is about 3,621 km/2,250 mi long, and is bordered
by the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Dividing Range, stretching
from Cape Melville on the northeast coast to New South Wales in
the south, bisects the state vertically. A coastal range of old
rocks, it is a continuation of the Australian Alps of Victoria
and the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The highest peaks are
Bartle Frere (1,622 m/ 5,321 ft) and Bellenden Ker (1,591 m/5,220
ft) near Cairns, Mount Dalrymple (1,277 m/4,190 ft), and Mount
Lindsay (1,233 m/4,045 ft), whilst the average height of the range
is 600 m/1,968 ft. To the north of Cape Melville a flat ridge
capped with sandstone runs through Cape York peninsula, gradually
declining in height until it reaches Cape York. To the west of
the Great Dividing Range the country is fairly flat, the great
western plain extending west to the borders with Northern Territory
and South Australia, and south to the New South Wales border.
The principal rivers are the Brisbane, Burdekin, Mackenzie, Dawson,
Isaac, and Burnett; the Norman, Flinders, Mitchell, Leichhardt,
Diamantina, Barcoo (Cooper Creek ), and Warrego rivers flow intermittently,
drying up in the dry season. Channel Country is an area of southwest
Queensland in which channels such as Cooper Creek are cut by intermittent
rivers.
Climate
The Tropic of Capricorn passes through the centre of Queensland, and
the climate is tropical and subtropical. The wet season extends
from about December to March. The rainfall on the east coast is
as much as 3,425 mm/135 in a year at Innisfail, but is no more
than 1,015 mm/40 in south of Port Curtis. The average rainfall
of the Darling Downs is about 889 mm/35 in and on the western
border about 220 mm/81/2 in. Much of this is ineffective because
of high evaporation. The western plains have been tapped by artesian
wells.
Agriculture
Queensland is still predominantly a primary agricultural producer,
although, because of the arid conditions in much of the state
only 2 million ha/5 million acres of the total area is cultivated.
The major cultivated areas are on the coastal plains and valleys
of the east coast where there are high temperatures and rainfall.
Most of the total Australian sugar cane crop is grown in small
fragmented areas of these coastal plains. A large part of the
cultivated area of Queensland is planted with grains (550,000
ha/ 1,350,000 acres), the most important of which are wheat and
grain sorghum (tropical cereal grasses, including millet). The
major grain area is the Darling Downs, in the southeast of the
state. Other crops include oats, peanuts, sunflowers, soya beans,
maize, hay crops, sugar cane, ginger grapes, and other fruit (especially
bananas and pineapples). The coastal plains and valleys are grazed
by dairy cattle, while beef cattle are raised in the drier inland
areas and fattened on the rich coastal pastures. Sheep are mainly
concentrated in the dry central regions of the state.
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