Brisbane is the capital of Queensland and Australia’s third largest city. It has a population of around 1.7 million and is located right in the middle on the east coast. Except it isn’t quite on the coast. It was built on the Brisbane River about 15 kms in from the Pacific Ocean.
A quick glance at any map of Australia will convince you that all the major cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane are all on the beach. They all are, except Brisbane, which is on a mangrove. Perhaps that's why Brisbane only came 21st in the Economist's Intelligence Unit’s 2010 Liveability Survey. But London only made 54th, so.....
Any shoreline about 15 kms either side of the mouth of the Brisbane River is a mangrove. Mangroves are intertidal trees and shrubs growing on tropical and subtropical shores. Basically, trees growing on mud. They are highly productive ecosystems, but you can’t build a sand castle on them.
But you’ll still need to bring your bucket and spade, because Brisbane is ideally located for both the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
Surfers Paradise (Gold Coast, north of Brisbane), one of Australia’s best know beaches, is about an hour and 10 minutes drive and Caloundra (Sunshine Coast, south) about an hour and a half. The closest sandy beaches to Brisbane are at Redcliffe (north) and Southport (south).
The city itself is very modern, clean and compact. It is easy to navigate and has its own man made “beach” at South Bank Parklands.
What's the weather like?
 Brisbane boasts, on average, around seven hours of sunshine each day. It doesn't really have a "proper" winter, so if shorts and T-shirt are your thing, you can wear them all year round.
The only time it gets anything like resembling "cold", is usually around July and August at night time when you may, on occasions, need to find some jog bottoms or a jumper to see you through those winter evenings.
Possible severe weather around the Brisbane area could include cyclones and some flooding. So be especially careful where you choose to settle. Brisbane Council has produced a flood areas map which you can download by specific area from Brisbane Council's website
Brisbane is where I live and I love it. The sprawling suburbs can be divided up into 5 areas as follows.
- Inner Brisbane - Including City, Inner North, Inner South, Inner East and Inner West
- Northern Suburbs - Including Moreton Bay Islands, Northern Suburbs, North Eastern Suburbs, North Western Suburbs, Outer North Eastern Suburbs and Outer Northern Suburbs
- Southern Suburbs - Including South Eastern Suburbs, South Western Suburbs and Southern Suburbs
Links to each of these areas can also be found in the main navigation on the left.
You may think this all looks pretty straight forward, but I didn't describe them as "sprawling suburbs" for nothing. These areas break down into around 80 or more postcodes and each postcode can have 2,3 or more places to live. All in all, there are about 250 different places around Brisbane that you can choose from to live.
Brisbane Suburbs Map
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