Townsville, Queensland

Townsville is a city and Local Government Area on the north-eastern coast of Australia, located in the state of Queensland at latitude 19.25 South and longitude 146.80 East. The population of the combined urban areas of Townsville/Thuringowa (as of 2004) was approximately 155,500. Townsville is positioned in the centre section of the Great Barrier Reef in the dry tropics.

The Townsville region is sometimes known as the 'Twin Cities', as the urban area includes the cities of Townsville (the coast and southern part of the region) and Thuringowa (inland and northern part of the region). Townsville continues to expand west and north, into the previously rural district of Thuringowa. Unit development in the inner city of Townsville is increasing the population density.

Townsville is a hub for all the major transport modes. The Bruce Highway (the main coastal highway) bypasses the city, and the main highway west to Mt Isa and the Northern Territory, the Flinders Highway, meets the Bruce Highway just south of Townsville. Likewise, the Great Northern Railway passes through the city, and the western rail line meets it just south of the city. Regular ferry services operate to Magnetic Island and Palm Island.

Townsville has a significant port at the mouth of Ross Creek. Major imported cargoes include cement and Nickel ore, for processing at the Yabulu Nickel refinery, 30 kilometres north of the port. The port also serves as an export point for products from mines North Queensland and for sugar export - with three sugar storage sheds, the newest being the largest under-cover storage area in Australia.

Townsville International airport Airport (which incidentally no longer handles international flights) at Garbutt was greatly expanded by US forces during World War II and has been rebuilt several times since.

The Ross River flows through Townsville. It is trunkated by three wiers and dammed 30km from its mouth, at the junction of Five Head Creek. The river is only navigable by small vessels. Boat speed and wash limits apply in most sections. Dredging and fish stocking of wiers has resulted in a deep, clean waterway for the recreation of the city's residents.

The Ross River Dam is Townsville's major water supply. This is supplemented by a smaller dam in the Paluma range to the city's north. The Burdekin Dam provides further water to the city in times of drought.

The city started life very inauspiciously when a sea captain by the name of Robert Towns commissioned James Melton Black to build a wharf on Cleveland Bay to service the new cattle industry inland. The location for the town was dictated by its location between the Burdekin and Herbert rivers, which, when in flood, could isolate access to the area by land for months at a time. The town was gazetted in 1865 and was declared a city in 1903. It is now the largest tropical city in Australia and is seen as the long-established, but unofficial, capital of northern Queensland,and services a vast area of the interior.

Tourism has of late helped in the city's expansion, though its traditional role is as an industrial port for exporting minerals from Mount Isa and Cloncurry, also beef and wool from the western plains and sugar and timber from the coastal regions, and this continues to be of great importance.

The city also has its own manufacturing and processing industries. Townsville is the only city globally to refine three different base metals - Zinc, Copper and Nickel. Nickel ore is imported from Indonesia, the Philippines and New Caledonia and processed at the Yabulu Nickel refinery, 30 kilometres north of the port. Zinc ore is transported by rail from the Cannington Mine, south of Cloncurry, for smelting at the Sun Metals refinery south of Townsville. Copper concentrate from the smelter at Mt Isa is also railed to Townsville for further refining at the copper refinery at Stuart.

Townsville has several large public assets due to its relative position and population. These include the only university in northern Queensland, James Cook University, the CSIRO Davies Laboratory, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (http://www.aims.gov.au) headquarters, the large Army base at Lavarack Barracks and the Air Force base at Garbutt.

Popular attractions for locals and visitors include 'The Strand', a long well-maintained tropical beach and garden strip; Reef HQ (http://www.reefhq.com.au/), a large tropical aquarium holding many of the Great Barrier Reef's native flora and fauna; the Museum of Tropical Queensland, built around a display of relics from the sunken British warship HMS Pandora; and Magnetic Island, a large neighbouring island, the vast majority of which is national park. Townsville plays host to a NRL team, the North_Queensland_Cowboys

The historic waterfront on Ross Creek, leading into Cleveland Bay, has some excellent old buildings mixed with the later modern skyline though nothing dominates this more than the huge 292 metre (just 8 metres short of being a mountain!) mass of red granite called Castle Hill. There is a lookout at the summit giving panoramic views of the city and its suburbs including Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. Several new suburbs and the shifting demographics of the Twin Cities have produced some debate amongst the locals as to whether the CBD will stay directly on the coast or move to an inland geographical centre of the city. The position of pre-existing assets on the coast plus the rivalry between the two cities contributes to the debate.

In October 2000 a Solomon Islands Peace Agreement was negotiated in Townsville.

External links

• Townsville Online (http://www.townsvilleonline.com.au/pages/index.cfm?ID=181&MenuCategory=Tourism)
• Townsville Council (http://www.townsville.qld.gov.au)
• Thuringowa Council (http://www.thuringowa.qld.gov.au)
• Townsville Airport (http://townsvilleairport.com.au)
• Port of Townsville (http://203.52.104.70/default.htm)
• James Cook University (http://www.jcu.edu.au)fr:Townsville

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