Consistent and accurate place names are the basis of a number of vital activities, including map production, communication services, population censuses and statistics, and emergency services.
Because of this, Queensland follows strict place naming guidelines and processes. Place naming is primarily the responsibility of the Department of Resources, which administers the Place Names Act 1994.
This guide explains the place naming process and the principles we follow when deciding place names.
Under the Place Names Act 1994, features or areas of land, whether natural or artificial, can be named.
Some types of places such as roads and national parks are excluded from the legislation. There are also some other places that are named by other processes or agencies and are not covered by this guide.
A list of these places is given below.
Type of place | Further information |
|---|---|
| Government buildings and facilities | A whole of government policy (PDF, 255KB) covers the naming and co-naming of government buildings and facilities. More information is available from the Department of Seniors, Disability Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. |
Roads, busways, bridges, cattle grids, culverts, ferries, fords, railway crossings, car parks, tunnels, viaducts and cuttings that are part of a road | These places are all considered roads. Major roads are named by the Department of Transport and Main Roads. Local roads are named by local government. |
Canals and open drains, except where they connect parts of a predominantly natural watercourse | |
Buildings and similar structures (including establishments such as schools and hospitals) | There is no single naming authority for buildings as responsibility varies depending on the use of the building. Also see the entry below regarding homesteads and rural properties. |
Dam walls and similar structures | |
Local government areas and divisions/wards of local government areas | |
Electoral districts | |
Marine parks | |
National parks, conservation parks, resources reserves, nature refuges, coordinated conservation areas, wilderness areas, World Heritage management areas, international agreement areas and forest reserves | |
Maritime, navigation, coastal, hydrographic and oceanographic features external to Queensland waters | Named by the Australian Hydrographic Office |
Undersea features located within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park | Named by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority |
Tourist regions, business districts, pastoral districts, agricultural regions, irrigation regions and similar | To avoid ambiguity and possible confusion for the delivery of emergency and location-based services, the only administrative boundaries named under the Place Names Act 1994 are the bounded localities and suburbs used in addressing. |
Unbounded localities | No longer named. All localities must now have defined boundaries. |
Airports, airfields, landing strips, runways, heliports, helipads and similar | |
Sports fields/grounds, courts, racing tracks, raceways and similar | Named by local government |
Timber reserves and state forests | |
Municipal parks and reserves | Named by local government |
Industrial estates, residential estates, business parks and similar | |
Statues, monuments and commemorative plaques | |
Survey marks, trigonometric stations, telecommunication towers, water towers and similar | |
Homesteads and rural properties | Named by the property owner and can be recorded as part of the property location address. Updates to rural property names should be advised to the relevant local council so they can update the rural property address. This information is passed on to DNRME and the geocoded national address file (G-NAF). Landholders can check their location address using Queensland Globe. |
Mines, mine fields, oil fields and similar | |
Boat ramps, jetties, marinas, ports, pontoons and similar (but not harbours) |
We administer the place naming process by:
Members of the community can play a part in the naming process by making a naming suggestion. These suggestions can be about new names, changes to names or changes to boundaries.
We will consider the suggestion and may recommend that the Minister develop a proposal.
Not all suggestions will lead to a proposal being developed - the suggestion must deliver some benefit to the community as well as follow place naming guidelines and principles.
When a proposal is developed, it is published to notify the community and invite interested parties to comment on the proposal. All comments are considered by the Minister as part of the decision-making process.
The Minister’s final decision is published on our website.
You can suggest names for geographic features in Queensland that have no official name. If the feature has a commonly used local name, we will give preference to that name, if it is appropriate.
You can also suggest changes to locality names and boundaries if there are problems with the current situation.
Please read about the place naming process for information about how your suggestion will be considered.
To comment on a current naming proposal, see the proposals and decisions section. To share any research or information you have about the origins of an existing place name, please email qldplacenames@resources.qld.gov.au. Be sure to include references to back up any research.
Your suggestion must include the following:
If the suggested name commemorates a deceased person or family, your documentation should include a brief biography containing:
To ensure there is no confusion, errors or discrimination caused by names, we use the following principles when considering names or boundary changes.
Names should be simple and concise and easy to recognise, spell and pronounce. In the case of Indigenous languages, it is accepted that a traditional name which might appear at first to be complex will, over time, become familiar and easy to use within the community.
Names should be no longer than 50 characters. Locality names should preferably be one word, while feature names should include a generic term (e.g. 'river' or 'bay') to indicate the feature type.
Only characters from the standard alphabet can be included (i.e. no special characters, diacritical marks or punctuation marks). Possessive apostrophes should be removed (e.g. 'Bethels Green' not 'Bethel's Green'), but apostrophes that are part of a personal name (e.g. 'O'Connor') can be retained. Hyphens should be replaced by spaces.
Numbers should be spelled out (e.g. 'Seventeen Seventy' not '1770').
Names should not begin with 'The', unless there are strong historical reasons for doing so.
Abbreviations, initials or acronyms are not allowed, except for the use of 'St' for 'Saint'.
Names from Indigenous languages should be transcribed as accurately as possible to suggest a pronunciation as close to the Indigenous form as possible. Names should be local to the area and endorsed by the local Indigenous community.
Alternative names can be used to recognise the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander name for a geographic feature where an approved name already exists and a name change is not acceptable. Alternative names are usually shown on maps and signs in brackets after or below the approved name, e.g. Big Woody Island (Tooliewah).
Dual naming is a management tool that can be used to gradually change the name of a geographic feature where an approved name already exists and a sudden change to the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander name is not possible or acceptable. Dual names consist of 2 parts separated by a forward slash (/) and the order of the parts is to be reviewed at regular intervals (e.g. Uluru/Ayers Rock).
In Queensland, geographical features may be given either a dual name or an alternative name, but not both.
Localities, suburbs and towns cannot have dual or alternate names.
Names should not be offensive, racist, derogatory or demeaning.
Name that could be construed as advertising or promoting commercial enterprises should not be used.
Naming a place in honour of a person should only occur after the person has passed away. The person commemorated should have contributed significantly to the area (ownership of land in itself is not sufficient). The spelling of the place name should follow the spelling of the personal name from which it is derived (e.g. 'MacRaes Flat' not 'McRaes Flat', where named after Mrs MacRae).
Cardinal indicators and similar prefixes or suffixes (e.g. 'Upper', 'New', 'East', 'West') should be avoided and more distinctive names used. If the use of such terms cannot be avoided, they should appear as suffixes instead of prefixes (e.g. 'Capalaba West' not 'West Capalaba').
Locality names must not duplicate or be similar in spelling or sound to other locality names within the country (e.g. 'Wytmont', 'Whitmont').
Feature names should not be similar in sound or spelling to any similar feature in the surrounding area.
Check for possible name duplication using the Gazetteer of Australia.
Names should not be words or acronyms protected by state or Commonwealth legislation, without the appropriate Ministerial approval.
Place names are intended to be enduring and should only be changed where there are sound reasons. Long-term benefits to the community must outweigh any private or corporate interests, short-term effects, and the impact on the community in making a change.
When a proposal to name a locality is being developed, the boundaries of the locality must be clearly defined and described on a plan. In general boundaries should:
Some exceptions to these principles may sometimes be necessary, for example in areas with complex local government boundaries or in large areas such as forests, lakes and national parks.
Feature extents shown on plans or described in decisions are indicative of the extent to which a name applies and are not intended as legal boundaries. Feature extents are not recorded in the place names database. Instead, each feature has a coordinate value which represents an approximate centroid of the feature. In watercourse and gully features, the coordinate value represents the downstream extent of the feature (e.g. where it joins another watercourse or reaches the ocean).
Before 1859, Queensland place naming was the responsibility of the Surveyor General of New South Wales. After separation, names were supplied by the Railways Department, Post Office and the Department of Public Instructions for ratification by the Department of Lands and the Surveyor General.
In the early 1920s, an unofficial committee comprising the Surveyor General, Commissioner of Railways, head of the Department of Public Instructions and university representatives was formed to approve and ratify all new place names. Professor Cumbrae-Stewart, representing The University of Queensland, was an influential committee member, who later became Chairman of the Queensland Place Names Committee. Other contributors to the recording of the history of place names were Sydney May and Colin Gill.
The Queensland Place Names Act 1958 set up the Place Names Board to approve names in the state. The Queensland Place Names Act 1988 disbanded the board and passed the responsibility for place naming to the Surveyor General, with Executive Council approving the names.
The Place Names Act 1994 gave the power for approval of place names to a Minister of the Crown. The Minister for Resources currently exercises this power. Records were first recorded on a card system, started by the unofficial committee in the 1920s. These cards were moved to The University of Queensland and later returned to the Department of Lands (Survey Office). In the 1940s, another more extensive card system was compiled using information from cadastral, topographic and military maps and the existing card system. In 1988, a computer system for place names was developed and all available information was entered into the Queensland place names database.
How places are named, 02 Nov 2023, [https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/title/place-names/naming]
This document is uncontrolled when printed. Before using the information in this document you should verify the current content on https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/title/place-names/naming.