Our City and Our Region
Situated in North Queensland, on the eastern seaboard of Australia, Cairns is a city of 170,00 people servicing a vast geographic region of North Eastern Australia with a population of 260,000. Growing at an average rate of 1.7% over the past two decades, the city is excepted to surpass 250,000 by 2035 and will be servicing a regional population of 500,000.
Our land uses are many, and varied, and the opportunities and options for population growth and economic diversification are endless. Our urban areas include residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, entertainment and culture, tourism and community land uses. Outside of the urban areas, our land uses are in the main around large pastoral leases, large tracts of lands held under Native Title legislation, sugar cane and banana farming as well as a growing and increasingly diversified horticultural and agriculture sector, including coffee and tea farming and other specialist primary industry activities. We are also home to a growing aquaculture and export fishing industry and have the largest number of commercially registered fishing vessels in the State. Although we are sometimes referred to as Tropical North Queensland, and the image portrayed is often of a tropical rainforest , the reality is that only a small percentage of our geographic area is in fact a rainforest environment.
Our region is home to Australia’s largest and most diversified tourism industry and Cairns is increasingly being recognised as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef which is accessed internationally via the Cairns International Airport now the fifth busiest aviation gateway in Australia. Additionally the GBR is serviced from our coastal destinations via the largest number of modern marine and aviation operators in Australia.
Next Steps...
If you feel passionate about the future well being of our region you need to get on board and become a part of the conversation around the region's future...