Surfers Paradise (colloquially known as Surfers) is a central suburb of the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In the , Surfers Paradise had a population of 55.909 people.
The suburb has many high-rise apartment buildings and a wide surf beach. The feature of the heart of the suburb is Cavill Mall, which runs through the shopping and entertainment precinct. Cavill Avenue, named after Jim Cavill, an early hotel owner, is one of the busiest shopping strips in Queensland, and the centre of activity for night life. One of the features of the area is the Surfers Paradise Meter Maids designed to build goodwill with tourists.
Surfers Paradise is the Gold Coast's main entertainment and tourism centre and the suburb's many high-rise buildings are the best known feature of the city's skyline.
In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Surfers Paradise was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "location".
Geography
Surfers Point is bounded to the east by the Coral Sea of the Pacific Ocean. The entire coastline of Surfers Paradise is called Surfers Paradise Beach () and is a continuous sandy surf beach. The Esplanade is a road that runs along the coast in the north-east of the suburb.
It is bounded to the north-west by the Nerang River which then flows through the suburb to exit at the suburb's most northerly boundary almost at the mouth of the river where it flows into the southern end of Moreton Bay. The south-west of the suburb is land on the western bank of the river and is bounded by Bundall Road.
The Gold Coast Highway passes through the suburb from north to south.
The course of the river has been modified extensively in the latter part of the 20th century to create permanent islands for residential development, some of which were natural features while others were on reclaimed land created by a system of canals.
Macintosh Island is an island, substantially redeveloped to create a canal residential estate (). It was named after Hugh Macintosh, a draftsman in the Queensland Lands Department, who was heavily involved in the surveying of Gold Coast area. It is connected to the mainland by the Gold Coast Highway, which passes through the eastern part of the island from north (Main Beach) to south (Surfers Paradise).
Chevron Island is a natural island which has been developed for residential use as a neighbourhood (). Thomas Drive is the main road on an east–west axis and which connects the island by two bridges to mainland Surfers Paradise to the east and to the suburb or Southport to the west. It has another bridge to the north to Cronin Island (), a smaller reclaimed island and residential neighbourhood which is only accessible by road via Chevron Island. Cronin Island is named after Jack Cronin, the first engineer employed by the Southport Town Council (now the Gold Coast City Council).
Budds Beach is a beach on the Nerang River on the mainland part of the suburb facing Macintosh Island, Chrevron Island and Cronin Island (). It was named after Alan Foster Budd who built a house there in the 1940s. Jarriparilla Cove is the body of water that lies between Budds Beach and Macintosh Island (). It is a traditional Aboriginal name.
Girung Island is a small undeveloped island () named using Yugambeh word for the flying foxes (fruit bats) which roost on the island.
Despite its name, the Isle of Capri is not an island but a canal residential neighbourhood () in the south-west of the suburb on the western side of the Nerang River. Also on the western side of the river and to the north of the Isle of Capri is Evandale Park () which is a park which contains the Gold Coast Council Chambers (administrative centre) and the council's Home of the Arts cultural precinct.Northcliffe Beach is a section of the Surfers Paradise Beach () in the area of Northcliffe Terrace, a name that refers to a 1920s real estate development between Enderley Avenue and Fern Street.
History
James Beattie, a farmer, became the first European to settle in the area when he staked out an farm on the northern bank of the Nerang River, close to present-day Cavill Avenue. The farm proved unsuccessful and was sold in 1877 to German immigrant Johan Meyer, who turned the land into a sugar farm and mill. Meyer also had little luck growing in the sandy soil and within a decade had auctioned the farm to focus on providing access to tourists wanting to visit the surf beach. From 1880 to 1928, Meyer's Ferry operated across the Nerang River transporting passengers and vehicles. He operated a horse-and-buggy service from the Southport railway station to the beach. He built the Main Beach Hotel. By 1889, Meyer's hotel had become a post receiving office and subdivisions surrounding it were called Elston, named by the Southport postmaster after his wife's home in Southport, Lancashire, England. The Main Beach Hotel licence lapsed after Meyer's death in 1901 and for 16 years Elston was a tourist town without a hotel or post office.*Gold Coast City Council – Early History of Surfers Paradise . Council of the City of Gold Coast. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
In 1917, a land auction was held by Brisbane real estate company Arthur Blackwood to sell subdivided blocks in Elston as the "Surfers' Paradise Estate", but the auction failed because access was difficult. This was the first recorded reference to the name Surfers Paradise.
Elston began to get more visitors after the opening of Jubilee Bridge and the extension of the South Coast Road in 1925. Elston was no longer cut off by the river and speculators began buying land around Elston and further south at Burleigh Heads. Estates down the coast were promoted and hotels opened to accommodate tourists and investors.
In 1925, Brisbane hotelier Jim Cavill opened the Surfers Paradise Hotel located on what would later become the site of the Surfers Paradise Centre which incorporates the Surfers Paradise Beer Garden and Hard Rock Cafe. In opening the hotel and neighbouring zoo, Cavill created the first attraction in the suburb. Located between the ferry jetty and the white surf beach off the South Coast Road, it became popular and shops and services sprang up around it. In the following years Cavill pushed to have the name Elston changed to Surfers' Paradise. The suburb was officially renamed on 1 December 1933 after the local council felt the Surfers Paradise name was more marketable. In July 1936 Cavill's timber hotel burnt to the ground and was rebuilt the following year.
In 1934, Surfers Paradise State School was first established on the north-east corner of Laycock Street and the Gold Coast Highway (now Gold Coast Boulevard), three blocks south of Cavill Avenue (). In 1976, the school relocated to its current site on the Isle of Capri.
In December 1938, tenders were called to construct a Methodist church in Hamilton Avenue, just off the Pacific Highway, close to the beach. The church was to seat 140 people and was designed by architect W. J. E. Kerrison. It was anticipated that the church would open at Easter in 1939. However, tenders were called again in July 1939. In June 1940, church officials indicated that they still did not have sufficient funds to build the church. In September 1940, tenders were called again to build the church in Clifford Street. On Saturday 23 October 1940, the stump-capping ceremony was held. On Saturday 14 December 1940, the Surfers Paradise Methodist Church was opened by Reverend Wilfred Slater, the President of the Methodist Conference. In 1977, it was part of the amalgamation that created the Uniting Church in Australia and became known as Clifford Street Uniting Church. The church celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 1990. An amalgamation of the Uniting Church congregations on the Gold Coast resulted in the closure of the Clifford Street church, which was relocated to Emmanuel College in Carrara to serve as their chapel. It was officially reopened at the college on 7 July 1991.
In the late 40s Margot Kelly moved here and had the Hibiscus Room built. This was a fine-dining restaurant and entertainment venue that attracted an exclusive clientele. A development boom followed in the 1950s and 1960s. The first highrise in Surfers Paradise was erected in 1959 and was named the Kinkabool. The Kinkabool stood 10 stories high and remains to this day in Hanlan Street. Many tall apartment buildings were constructed in the decades that followed, including the iconic buildings included the Iluka, St Tropez and The Pink Poodle. The boom later saw strong Japanese investment in the 1980s.
Little remains of the early vegetation or natural features of the area and even the historical association of the beachfront development with the river is tenuous. The early subdivision pattern remains, although later reclamation of the islands in the Nerang River as housing estates (e.g. Chevron Island), and the bridges to those islands, have created a contrast reflected in subdivision and building form. Some early remnants survived such as Budds Beach — a low-scale open area on the river which even in the early history of the area was a centre for boating, fishing and swimming. In the early 2010s, the annual Surfers Paradise Festival was held in March and April. It was a celebration of local music, food, fashion, film and art and is a key driver of the Gold Coast's long-term cultural development. Across the four weekends of the festival, the Surfers Paradise precinct was transformed into a vibrant showcase of the Gold Coast's emerging arts and cultural scene.The festival comprised an accessible mix of family events, exhibitions, live music, street markets and short film screenings. By 2020, minor changes had occurred in extending the road along the beachfront since the early subdivision and The Esplanade road is now a focus of activity, with supporting shops and restaurants. The intensity of activity, centred on Cavill, Orchid and Elkhorn Avenues, is reflected in the density of development. Of all places on the Gold Coast the high-rise buildings in this area constitute a dominant and enduring image visible from as far south as Coolangatta and from the mountain resorts of the hinterland.
Demographics In the , the suburb of Surfers Paradise had a population of 19,668 people.
In the , the suburb of Surfers Paradise had a population of 23,689 people. Of these 51.1% were male and 48.9% were female. The median age of the Surfers Paradise population was 37 years, 1 year below the national median of 38. 44.6% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were New Zealand 7.1%, England 3.7%, India 3.6%, Brazil 2.4% and Japan 2.1%. 59.3% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 2.5%, Portuguese 2.4%, Japanese 2.3%, Punjabi 1.8% and Spanish 1.6%. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 29.2% and Catholic 19.3%. Surfers Paradise was an ethnically diverse suburb, including the largest Jewish community (119 people; 0.5%), the largest Spanish Australian community (285 people; 1.2%), and the largest Lebanese Australian community (84 people; 0.4%) of any suburb in Queensland.
In the , the suburb of Surfers Paradise had a population of 26,412 people.
Heritage listings
Surfers Paradise has a number of heritage-listed structures, including:
135 Bundall Road (Evandale Park): St Margaret's Church (originally in Nerang)Gold Coast Local Heritage Register - N to Z, pp. 109-110 44 Cavill Avenue (Cavill Park): Matey Memorial, a 1957 bronze statue of a homeless dogGold Coast Local Heritage Register - A to M, pp. 73-74 18 Fern Street: The Pink Poodle signGold Coast Local Heritage Register - N to Z, pp. 97-98 32–34 Hanlan Street: Kinkabool, one of the original apartment blocks Gold Coast Local Heritage Register - A to M, pp. 51-62
Attractions Foreshore