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Queensland place naming is the process by which the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended fr ...

assigns names to locations of natural features (e.g. mountains and rivers) and man-made places such as settlements (e.g. towns and suburbs) within

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. Place naming must be consistent and accurate to prevent confusion and inefficiency in everyday activities, e.g. delivering goods and services, and strict guidelines apply to place naming in Queensland.

History

Professor Francis William Sutton Cumbrae-Stewart

Queensland place naming was the responsibility of the

Surveyor General of New South Wales The Surveyor-General of New South Wales is the primary government authority responsible for land and mining surveying in New South Wales. The original duties for the Surveyor General was to measure and determine land grants for settlers in New So ...

until the

Separation of Queensland The Separation of Queensland was an event in 1859 in which the land that forms the present-day State of Queensland in Australia was excised from the Colony of New South Wales and created as a separate Colony of Queensland. History European sett ...

in 1859. After separation, names were supplied by the Railways Department (now

Queensland Rail Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...

), the Queensland Post Office (now part of

Australia Post Australia Post, formally the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. The head office of Australia Post is located in Bourke Street, Melbourne, which also serves as a post o ...

) and the Department of Public Instruction (now Department of Education and Training) for ratification by the Department of Lands and the

Surveyor General of Queensland Surveyor General of Queensland is a position originally created for the colony of Queensland, now a state of Australia. The position was the most senior surveyor within the Queensland Public Service. List of Surveyors General of Queensland See ...

. In the early 1920s, an unofficial committee comprising the Surveyor General, Commissioner of Railways, head of the Department of Public Instructions and university representatives was formed to approve and ratify all new place names. Professor Frank Cumbrae-Stewart, representing

The University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = Br ...

, was an influential committee member, who later became Chairman of the Queensland Place Names Committee. Other contributors to the recording of the history of place names were Sydney May and Colin Gill. The ''Queensland Place Names Act 1958'' set up the Queensland Place Names Board to approve names in the state. The ''Queensland Place Names Act 1988'' disbanded the board and passed the responsibility for place naming to the Surveyor General, with Executive Council approving the names. The ''Place Names Act 1994'' gave the power for approval of place names to a Minister of the Crown. As at 2017, the

Minister for Natural Resources and Mines The Department of Resources is a department of the Queensland Government in Australia. The department is responsible for regulating mining, and resources in the state. The department's headquarters are at 1 William Street, Brisbane. Structure ...

exercises this power. Records were first recorded on a card system, started by the unofficial committee in the 1920s. These cards were moved to The University of Queensland and later returned to the Department of Lands (Survey Office). In the 1940s, another more extensive card system was compiled using information from

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represented graphically in a cad ...

topographic Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

and military maps and the existing card system. In 1988, a computer system for place names was developed and all available information was entered into the Queensland place names database.

Current arrangements

Place names can be looked up on-line by the public on the Queensland Government's website. Queensland place names are contributed into the

Gazetteer of Australia The Gazetteer of Australia is an index or dictionary of the location and spelling of geographical names across Australia. Geographic names include towns, suburbs and roads, plus geographical features such as hills, rivers, and lakes. The index is ...

maintained by the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

References

{{Reflist

Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based on '
How places are named: History of Queensland place naming
'' published by the

State of Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

under CC-BY 3.0 AU license (accessed on 22 June 2017
archived
on 22 June 2017

External links

Search for Queensland place names
Australian toponymy History of Queensland Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Government Geographic history of Queensland