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Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Australia. It is in the state of Queensland at latitude 19.25S, and longitude 146.80E. The population of the combined urban areas of Townsville/Thuringowa (as of 2004) was approximately 155,500. Townsville is positioned in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef in the dry tropics, although the more northern city of Cairns, in the wet tropics, performs the bulk of the reef's marine tourism.
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 has been expanding west, away from the coast over time, into the previously rural district of Thuringowa. Thuringowa was the fastest growing city in Australia at the last census. However, recent inner city unit developments are changing the population emphasis again.
Townsville is a significant node for all the major transport modes. The Bruce Highway (the main coastal highway) passes through 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 lines meet it just south of the city.
It has a significant port at the mouth of Ross Creek, major cargoes being various ores and smelted products from mines and smelters in north Queensland. It also serves as a major port for sugar export. Townsville InternationalAirport 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.
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 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 metals - Zinc, Copper and Nickel.
Townsville has several large public assets due to its relative position and population. These include the only major university in northern Queensland, James Cook University, the CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (http://www.aims.gov.au), the army at Lavarack Barracks and the Air Force at Garbutt. Both education and defence force personnel funnel considerable money into the local economy.
Popular attractions for locals and vistors include 'The Strand', a long well-maintained tropical white beach; ReefHQ (http://www.reefhq.org.au/), a large tropical aquarium holding many of the Great Barrier Reef's native flora and fauna; and Magnetic Island, a large neighbouring island of which the vast majority is national park.
The historical waterfront on Cleveland Bay possesses some excellent old buildings mixed with the later modern skyline though nothing dominates this more than the huge 300m mass of red rock called Castle Hill which has a lookout at the summit giving excellent 360° views of the city and its suburbs including Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. Several new suburbs and the shifting demographics of the Twin Cities has 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.
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