Gold Coast
Named sarcastically for inflated prices in 1950, adopted as brand. From Surfers Paradise Hotel (1925) to A$49.4B economy—Australia's fastest-growing. 12.2 million visitors, 647,000 residents, median house price A$1.1M.
The Gold Coast earned its name as an insult—local prices were so inflated by the 1950s that visitors called it the 'Gold Coast' in disgust. The locals adopted it as a marketing triumph. That origin story captures everything about Australia's sixth-largest city: a place that turned skepticism into brand, speculation into skyline, and 57 kilometers of beach into the largest regional economy in the country.
The Yugambeh people—including the Kombumerri, Mununjali, and Wangerriburra clans—inhabited this coast for millennia before Europeans arrived. The first European town, Southport, was founded in 1874, but the region remained a quiet stretch of the 'South Coast' until a Brisbane hotelier named Jim Cavill built the Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1925. He opened a zoo next door and lobbied to rename the suburb from Elston to Surfers Paradise—completed in 1933 because the council decided the new name was 'more marketable.' Cavill invented a destination before the destination existed.
The postwar tourism boom transformed the South Coast into something unprecedented in Australia: a linear city built entirely around leisure. The first high-rise, Kinkabool, opened in 1959. Theme parks followed—Marineland in 1965, then Dreamworld, Sea World, Movie World. By the 1970s, iconic towers like Iluka and St Tropez defined the skyline. The Gold Coast invented the 'Meter Maid'—bikini-clad women who fed parking meters so tourists wouldn't get fined. Every innovation served the same purpose: make visitors stay longer and spend more.
Today the Gold Coast is home to 647,000 people and a A$49.4 billion economy—Australia's fastest-growing in the post-pandemic era, outpacing every capital city. In 2023, 12.2 million visitors spent A$7.8 billion. But the city has diversified beyond tourism: technology, professional services, health, screen production, and education now contribute alongside the legacy pillars of construction and hospitality. Median house prices have reached A$1.1 million; home values rose 18% in 2024 alone. The Gold Coast hosts Commonwealth Games venues (2018) and serves as a spillover destination for Brisbane's 2032 Olympics.
By 2026, the Gold Coast faces the test every resort city confronts: can an economy built on leisure become a place where people work, not just play? Population projections suggest 820,000 residents by 2035. The diversification is real but still fragile—tourism remains the foundation. The city's bet is that lifestyle migration from Melbourne and Sydney will bring the professional services, tech workers, and creative industries that make the economy self-sustaining. The name that started as mockery is now the brand.