Chinderah is a town in the

Tweed Shire Tweed Shire is a local government area located in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. It is adjacent to the border with Queensland, where that meets the Coral Sea. Administered from the town of Murwillumbah, Tweed Shire ...

. It is located south of

Tweed Heads Tweed Heads is a coastal city at the mouth of the Tweed River in the Northern Rivers region of the state of New South Wales, Australia. Tweed Heads is the northernmost town in New South Wales, and is located in the Tweed Shire local government ...

and next to the seaside township of Kingscliff. An industrial estate, golf course and small shopping precinct are located within the area.

History

First surveyed in 1863, Chinderah developed into a centre of agriculture with

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

as a major industry, currently a source of

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is produced i ...

South Sea Islanders South Sea Islanders, formerly referred to as Kanakas, are the Australian descendants of Pacific Islanders from more than 80 islandsincluding the Oceanian archipelagoes of the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, the Gilbert Islands ...

later arrived and became victims of slavery for the recruitment of

blackbirding Blackbirding was the trade in indentured labourers from the Pacific in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is often described as a form of slavery, despite the British Slavery Abolition Act 1833 banning slavery throughout the British Empire, ...

. The town was bisected by the Pacific Highway in 1996. In 2022, as a result of heavy rainfall, Chinderah was battered by

floods A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

when the Tweed River broke its banks at a recorded peak.

Demographics

In the 2016 Census, Chinderah recorded a population of 1,566 people, 47.9% female and 52.1% male. The median age of Chinderah residents was 60 years, 22 years above the national median of 38. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 7.6% of the population. 75.4% of Chinderah residents were born in Australia and 91.5% of people spoke only English at home. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 25.9%, Anglican 23.3% and Catholic 22.8%.

References

Suburbs of Tweed Heads, New South Wales Towns in New South Wales {{NorthernRivers-geo-stub