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Queensland (locally /ˈkwnzlænd/ KWEENZ-land, commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a state in north-eastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to its north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subnational entity; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, including tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.

Queensland has a population of over 5.3 million, concentrated along the east coast, particularly in South East Queensland. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city. Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland, the largest outside Brisbane being the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. 28.9% of the state's population were immigrants. (Full article...)

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The beach on Fraser Island serves as a main road and even a landing strip
Fraser Island is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and its width is approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi). It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1840 km². It is also Queensland's largest island, Australia's sixth largest island and the largest island on the East Coast of Australia.

The island has rain forests, eucalyptus woodland, mangrove forests, wallum swamps, sand dunes and coastal heaths. It is made up of sand that has been accumulating for approximately 750,000 years on volcanic bedrock that provides a natural catchment for the sediment which is carried on a strong offshore current northwards along the coast. Unlike many sand dunes, plant life is abundant due to the naturally occurring mycorrhizal fungi present in the sand, which release nutrients in a form that can be absorbed by the plants. Fraser Island is home to a small number of mammal species, as well as a diverse range of birds, reptiles and amphibians, including the occasional saltwater crocodile. The island is part of the Fraser Coast Regional Council and protected in the Great Sandy National Park.

Fraser Island has been inhabited by humans for as much as 5,000 years. Explorer James Cook sailed by the island in May of 1770. Matthew Flinders landed near the most northern point of the island in 1802. For a short period the island was known as Great Sandy Island. The island became known as Fraser due to the stories of a shipwreck survivor named Eliza Fraser. Today the island is a popular tourism destination.

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La Boite Theatre Company is a major Australian theatre company based in Brisbane, Queensland. La Boite is the second largest theatre company in Queensland. Established in 1925, it occupies an important place in Queensland’s cultural history. It is known for its bold, contemporary approach towards theatrical texts, and its development of new Australian work. Its declared mission is to "produce and present exhilarating theatre that is alive to the present, extends and inspires artists, and invigorates the hearts and minds of audiences".

La Boite's mainstage production series is augmented by presentations of independent theatre work. In 2010, there were eleven productions, as well as various creative development and education programs.

La Boite is based at Brisbane’s Roundhouse Theatre, Australia’s only purpose-built theatre-in-the-round. Located in the Creative Industries Precinct of the Queensland University of Technology in Kelvin Grove. It seats 400, or 340 in thrust staging. The company moved into this new venue in February 2004, leaving its smaller theatre-in-the-round building in Hale Street, Milton, where it had been since 1972. (Full article...)

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Coastal defences on Bribie Island

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