ueensland is a state of Australia that occupies the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory to the west, South Australia to the south-west and New South Wales to the south. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. The state is Australia's second largest by area, following Western Australia, and the country's third most populous after New South Wales and Victoria.
The area was first occupied by Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, who arrived between 40,000 and 65,000 years ago, according to various dating methods.Later, Queensland was made a British Crown Colony that was separated from New South Wales on 6 June 1859, a date now celebrated state-wide as Queensland Day. The area that currently forms the state capital, Brisbane, was originally the Moreton Bay penal colony, intended as a place for recidivist convicts who had offended while serving out their sentences in New South Wales. The state later encouraged free settlement, and today Queensland's economy is dominated by the agricultural, tourist and natural resource sectors.
The state's population is concentrated in South East Queensland, which includes Brisbane, Logan City, Redland City, Ipswich, Toowoomba, and the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Other major regional centres include Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Ingham and Mount Isa.
Queensland is often nicknamed the Sunshine State, since it enjoys warm weather and a sizeable portion of the state is in the tropics.

History

The history of Queensland spans thousands of years, encompassing both a lengthy indigenous presence, as well as the eventful times of post-European settlement. Estimated to have been settled by Indigenous Australians approximately 40,000 years ago, the north-eastern Australian region was explored by Dutch, Portuguese and French navigators before being encountered by Captain James Cook in 1770. The Australian Labor Party has its origin as a formal organisation in Queensland and the town of Barcaldine is the symbolic birthplace of the party. The state has witnessed frontier warfare between European settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, as well as the employment of cheap Kanaka labour sourced from the South Pacific. June 2009 marked the 150 anniversary of its creation as a separate colony from New South Wales. (For the time being: Text is from Wikipedia)