Queensland Geography & Climate

Queensland is Australia's second-largest state and runs from the subtropics to the deep tropics. The Great Barrier Reef stretches some 2,300 kilometres off its coast — around 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands, and the only living structure visible from orbit.

Between the reef and the ranges runs a narrow coastal strip where almost everyone lives. In the far north the Daintree brings rainforest right down to the beach, the only place on earth where two World Heritage areas meet.

The Great Dividing Range runs the length of the state and catches the moisture; west of it the land dries fast into cattle country and then the Channel Country, where rivers flow inland and mostly never reach the sea.

Cape York, at the top, is monsoonal wilderness accessible only in the dry.

The tropical north runs on two seasons rather than four. The dry, May to October, is warm, clear and comfortable. The wet, November to April, is hot and humid with heavy afternoon storms, flooding and road closures.

Cyclone season coincides with the wet. Systems are forecast days ahead, so the practical risk is disruption and evacuation rather than surprise, but travel insurance matters in those months.

The southeast is subtropical: hot humid summers, mild dry winters, and pleasant most of the year.

Inland is hot and dry, regularly above 40°C in summer, with cold clear winter nights.