Gold Coast

Gold Coast is a coastal city in southeast Queensland, Australia, running south from Brisbane to the border with New South Wales. The city hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2018, with events held in new venues along the coast.

Surfers Paradise grew from a single hotel that Jim Cavill opened by the beach in the 1920s, and the area took its name from that hotel. The name Gold Coast began in the 1950s as a nickname for the rising price of seaside land, and the coastal towns from Southport to Coolangatta were joined under that name as a city. The Gold Coast Suns joined the Australian Football League in the 2010s and play at the stadium in Carrara that held the athletics of the Commonwealth Games. Bikini-clad meter maids, first hired in the 1960s to feed parking meters for motorists, became a symbol of the beach.

Billabong was founded on the Gold Coast by Gordon Merchant, who began by sewing board shorts in his flat. Village Roadshow Theme Parks runs theme parks in the north of the city from its offices in Oxenford. Film studios in Oxenford have been used for Hollywood productions such as Aquaman and Elvis.

Q1, a tower in Surfers Paradise finished in the 2000s, rises to 322 m (1,056 ft) with an observation deck near the top. Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, opened in the late 1940s, began when a beekeeper fed wild lorikeets to keep them away from his flowers. Springbrook National Park, in the hills behind the coast, is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area.