Before Captain Cook mapped the coastline of Queensland in 1770, indigenous people lived along the coast and in rural areas for more than 40,000 years. Today, there is a plethora of fascinating Aboriginal culture in tools and rock art found around the area.

Aside from Captain Cook’s unplanned visit to modern-day Cooktown in 1770, white settlers didn’t arrive until 1823 when John Oxley set sail from Sydney to explore the New South Wales colony’s northern coastline. After reaching Gladstone and the Brisbane River, John Oxley returned to the area in 1824 to settle a penal colony at Redcliffe, just to the north of the Brisbane River. However, this was moved to the current North Quay area of Brisbane’sBrisbane’s CBD shortly afterward.
In 1859, Queensland gained independence from New South Wales. The state experienced rapid development through the gold rush in the mid-1800s. Cattle farming, mining, and sugar plantations became a big business by the 1890s. The growth of steam trains aided these industries in the late 19th century. In the 1890s, large-scale migrations of “Kanaka” or Pacific Islanders were carried out to help work in the sugar fields. The White Australia Policy saw these migrant populations diminish by 1901.

Queensland has over 5.1 million people, concentrated along the coast, particularly in South East Queensland. Queensland, also known as QLD, is the third most populated state in Australia. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane. Brisbane has an estimated population of around over 2 million people. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People account for 3.6 percent of Queensland’s population.

Queensland, the state of northeastern Australia, occupying the most tropical part of the continent. It is bounded to the north and east by the Coral Sea (an embayment of the southwestern Pacific Ocean), to the south by New South Wales, to the southwest by South Australia, and the west by the Northern Territory. The capital is Brisbane, on the state’s southeastern coast.

Queensland is Australia’s second-largest state (behind Western Australia), with a total area of 1,730,648 km². Queensland also has Australia’s second-longest border (behind New South Wales) with a total of 3339 km.

One of the six founding states of Australia, Queensland has been a federated state subject to the Australian Constitution since 1 January 1901. It is sovereign, other than in the matters ceded in the Australian Constitution to the federal government. It is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Constitution of Queensland sets out the operation of the state’s government. The state’s constitution contains several entrenched provisions which cannot be changed in the absence of a referendum. There is also a statutory bill of rights, the Queensland Human Rights Act (2019). Queensland’s system of government is influenced by the Westminster system and Australia’s federal system of government.

The government is separated into three branches:

• Legislature: the unicameral Parliament of Queensland, comprising the Legislative Assembly and the Monarch (represented by the Governor);
• Executive: the Executive Council of Queensland, which formalises decisions of the Cabinet of Queensland, which is composed of the Premier and other ministers of state appointed by the Governor on the advice of Parliament;
• Judiciary: the Supreme Court and other state courts, whose judges are appointed by the Governor on advice of Parliament.