Townsville

Sister cities

• Port Moresby
• Suwon
• Changshu
• Shūnan-shi
• Iwaki

History

Aboriginal peoples such as the Wulgurukaba, Bindal, Girrugubba, Warakamai and Nawagi originally inhabited the Townsville area. The Wulgurukaba claim to be the traditional owners of the Townsville city area; the Bindal had a claim struck out by the Federal Court of Australia in 2005. The Wulgurukaba people call their country Gurrumbilbarra, while the Bindal call their country Thul Garrie Waja. James Cook visited the Townsville region on his first voyage to Australia in 1770 but did not land there. Cook named nearby Cape Cleveland, Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. In 1819, Captain Phillip Parker King and botanist Alan Cunningham were the first Europeans to record a local landing. The Burdekin River's seasonal flooding made the establishment of a seaport north of the river essential to the nascent inland cattle industry. John Melton Black of Woodstock Station, an employee of Sydney entrepreneur and businessman Robert Towns, dispatched Andrew Ball, Mark Watt Reid and a detachment of 8 troopers of the Native Police under the command of John Marlow to search for a suitable site. The next group of colonists, led by W. A. Ross, arrived at Cleveland Bay from Woodstock Station on 5 November that year. In 1866, Robert Towns visited for three days, his first and only visit. He agreed to provide ongoing financial assistance to the new settlement and Townsville was named in his honour. In 1915, the train line extended from Townsville out to Alligator Creek and in 1946 there was a dispute with workers who left work 15 minutes early to catch the 4:30 pm train back to town and the factory threatened to sack 340 workers reporting that it wasn’t 15 minutes but some had stopped working at 3:45 or 4 pm. On 8 July 1866, Robert Towns imported the first boatload of South Sea Islanders…

Geography

Townsville lies approximately north of Brisbane, and south of Cairns. It lies on the shores of Cleveland Bay, protected to some degree from the predominantly south-east weather. Cleveland Bay is mostly shallow inshore, with several large beaches and continually shifting sand bars. Magnetic Island lies offshore, to the north of the city centre. It, together with Castle Hill in the town centre and Mount Stuart to the south of the city, form a large quartz monzonite igneous province.The Ross River flows through the city. Three weirs, fish stocking and dredging of the river in these reaches has resulted in a deep, stable and clean waterway used for many recreational activities such as water skiing, fishing and rowing. from the mouth (at the junction of Five Head Creek) is the Ross River Dam, the major water storage for the urban areas. The historic waterfront on Ross Creek, site of the original wharves and port facilities, has some old buildings mixed with the later modern skyline. However, the central city is dominated by the mass of red granite of Castle Hill, high. There is a lookout at the summit giving panoramic views of the city and its suburbs, including Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. There are a number of parks scattered throughout the city, including three botanical gardens — Anderson Park, Queens Gardens and The Palmetum. Townsville has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification Aw). Owing to a quirk of geographical location, Townsville's winter rainfall in particular is not as high as elsewhere in the eastern coastal tropics of Queensland, such as Cairns. The winter months are dominated by southeast trade winds and mostly fine weather. Further north the coastline runs north–south and the trade winds are lifted to produce rainfall…

Most-observed species

• Peaceful Dove

  Geopelia placida Gould, 1844 · Aves
  9,120
• Rainbow Lorikeet

  Trichoglossus haematodus (Linnaeus, 1771) · Aves
  8,098
• Australian Ibis

  Threskiornis molucca (Cuvier, 1829) · Aves
  7,973
• Magpie-lark

  Grallina cyanoleuca (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  7,288
• Brown Honeyeater

  Lichmera indistincta (Vigors & Horsfield, 1827) · Aves
  7,208
• Masked Lapwing

  Vanellus miles (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  7,027
• Great Bowerbird

  Chlamydera nuchalis (Jardine & Selby, 1830) · Aves
  6,162
• Rainbow Bee-eater

  Merops ornatus Latham, 1801 · Aves
  5,776

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2025-03-01
  0 km SE of Kelso, Australia
• M 4.8 — 2003-08-11
  65 km ENE of Palm Island, Australia