Cairns (pop. 153,181) is the main city of northern Queensland, a state in Australia. It lies on Australia’s northeast coast along the Coral Sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean. Cairns is the nearest city to the Great Barrier Reef, and tourism provides much of the region’s income. An international airport and a naval base in Cairns employ many local people. The city provides services for the construction, education, health care, manufacturing, and mining industries. Farmers in the region raise livestock and grow crops, including sugar cane and tropical fruits.
Millions of tourists visit Cairns each year. In addition to the Great Barrier Reef, the area has many other natural attractions, including beaches and waterfalls. Visitors to the area enjoy sailing, scuba diving, and snorkeling in its coastal waters. The Kuranda Scenic Railway, opened in 1891, runs between Cairns and the rain forest village of Kuranda. The railway passes through tropical rain forests and the Barron Gorge canyon.
Cairns was built upon the traditional lands of the Yidinji and Yirrganydji Aboriginal peoples. The British explorer James Cook encountered the area in 1870. He was the first European known to have reached the area. Cook sighted a large bay just north of what is now Cairns. He named the bay Trinity Bay.
Many settlers moved to the area in the 1870’s after gold was discovered around the Palmer River. In 1876, the colonial government of Queensland established Cairns as a port. The settlement was named after William Wellington Cairns, the governor of Queensland at that time. The settlement’s early industries included logging and mining. Farmers in the area began to grow crops, including bananas and sugar cane. The first sugar mills in Cairns were established in the 1880’s. Cairns was declared a town in 1903 and a city in 1923.
In 1935, scientists employed by the state government of Queensland released American cane toads around the town of Gordonvale, just south of Cairns. They thought the toads would eat cane beetles, a common pest of sugar cane crops. The cane toad became an invasive species—that is, a living thing that spreads rapidly in a new environment lacking natural controls on its growth. Today, northern Australia has millions of cane toads. They pose a serious threat to the native wildlife.
Throughout its history, Cairns has experienced episodes of extreme flooding. Many floods have been the result of cyclones, which pass over the area frequently from November to April. Some of the worst floods in the area’s recorded history occurred in 1918, 1977, 1997, and 2006. Another record flood occurred in December 2023, when rainfall from Tropical Cyclone Jasper caused the Barron River to overflow into Cairns and neighboring communities.
