Brisbane
is the capital and most populous city
of the Australian state of Queensland,
and is the third largest city in Australia,
with a population of over 1.77 million.
It is a city set close to the Pacific
Ocean, and is situated beside the Brisbane
River on plains between Moreton Bay
and the Great Dividing Range in south-eastern
Queensland.
Named in honour of Sir
Thomas Brisbane, the city grew from
a harsh penal colony established by
New South Wales at Redcliffe in 1824.
It was chosen as the capital of Queensland
when it was proclaimed a separate colony
in 1859. The city developed slowly until
after World War II, when it played a
central role in the Allied campaign
as the South West Pacific headquarters
for General Douglas MacArthur. Brisbane
staged a successful Commonwealth Games
in 1982 and World's Fair in 1988. In
the new millennium, it is Australia's
fastest growing city and the second
fastest in the developed world.
The area now known as
Brisbane was inhabited before European
settlement by the Turrbul and Jagera
people whose ancestors originally migrated
to the region from across the Torres
Strait. In 1823 an exploration party
led by John Oxley explored Moreton Bay
and sailed up the Brisbane River as
far as Goodna, some 20 km upstream from
what is now Brisbane central business
district.
In 1824, the colonial
administration of New South Wales established
a penal settlement at what is now Redcliffe,
on the shores of Moreton Bay. However,
the Redcliffe settlement was abandoned
after only one year and the colony was
moved south to a peninsula on the Brisbane
River (today the Brisbane CBD), which
offered a more reliable water supply.
Non-convict European settlement of the
Brisbane region commenced in 1838.
Queensland was proclaimed
a separate colony in June 1859 and Brisbane,
which was named in honour of Sir Thomas
Brisbane (who was, at that time, Governor
of New South Wales), was chosen as its
capital. However, Brisbane was not incorporated
as a city until 1902. Over twenty small
municipalities and shires were amalgamated,
in 1925, to form the City of Greater
Brisbane, now known simply as the City
of Brisbane.
During World War II, Brisbane
played a central role in the the Allied
campaign when the AMP Building (now
called MacArthur Central) was used as
the South West Pacific headquarters
for General Douglas MacArthur, the chief
of the Allied Pacific forces.
Brisbane staged a successful
Commonwealth Games in 1982 and World's
Fair in 1988. These events in the 1980s
were accompanied by a scale of public
expenditure, construction and diplomacy
not previously seen in the state of
Queensland.
In the decades since,
the metropolis has become one of Australia's
fastest growing cities through migration
from all continents and the Australian
states and territories. In the new millennium,
it is one of Australia's fastest growing
and most multicultural centres.
Brisbane has a typical
subtropical climate with hot, humid
summers and dry, mild winters. From
late Spring through to early Autumn,
thunderstorms are common over the greater
Brisbane area, with the more severe
events accompanied by large damaging
hailstones, torrential rain and destructive
winds.
The city's highest recorded
temperature was 43.2 °C (109.8 °F)
on the 26 January 1940, while the lowest
temperature of 2.3 °C (36.1 °F)
was recorded on 12 July 1894 and 2 July
1896 [3]. Brisbane's wettest day was
21 January 1887, when 465 mm (18.3 in)
of rain fell on the city, the highest
maximum daily rainfall of any of Australia's
capital cities.
Information provided coutesy
of Wikipedia
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