Greater Brisbane

Greater Brisbane is a group of five local government areas which all make up Brisbane's 2.6 million inhabitants, or about 49 per cent of Queensland's population in 2020. The primary one is the City of Brisbane, which holds over 1.1 million inhabitants, making it the largest local government area in Australia.

Districts

The first five mentioned are the five local government areas that make up Greater Brisbane, which also correspond to tourism regions. The capital of Brisbane is mentioned first, while the rest are mentioned in a clockwise order starting south.

Moreton Island is neither an LGA or a region, and is usually treated as a part of Brisbane, and the only way to access the island is via a ferry, and from a travellers point of view, it's not really a part of Brisbane, but a destination of its own. Moreton Island also has a completely different road and transport system to the rest of Brisbane, and hence, categorised under Greater Brisbane, not Brisbane.

Greater Brisbane regions - Color-coded map

Brisbane The bustling state capital of Queensland and the largest local government area in Australia, the City of Brisbane offers fantastic shopping and dining experiences beside its winding river that characterises the city.

Logan Just to the south of Brisbane, a rather much smaller city known for a mix of a city and rural feeling. Logan for the most part, is not on the bucket list for most travellers, but worth checking out if you're staying in Brisbane for a long period of time.

Ipswich Just to the west of Brisbane nestled between the highly urbanised parts of the south-east to the vast open plains and mountains of the Darling Downs, Ipswich is known for having many heritage sites.

Moreton Bay Just to the north of Brisbane and south of the Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay is a popular destination to go for fishing on its long coastline. Its beaches are popular for surfing too.

Redland City Colloquially called, the "Redlands", it is perhaps the most forgotten out of the five. Nestled south-east of the City of Brisbane and the Tasman Sea, it contains several cultural facilities, along with North Stradbroke Island, a large sand island.

Moreton Island 95% of this large sand island is contained within a national park and a popular destination for day trippers, four-wheel driving, camping, recreational angling and whale watching.

Other destinations

• 1 D'Aguilar National Park – home to the very scenic D'Aguilar Range just minutes northwest of Brisbane
• 2 Fort Lytton National Park – a key fort that played an important role in Brisbane's defence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• 3 Gheebulum Kunungai (Moreton Island) National Park
• 4 Naree Budjong Djara National Park (Blue Lake)
• 5 North Stradbroke Island – located to the east of Redlands City, North Stradbroke Island is the second largest sand island in the world, just after K'gari.
• 6 Southern Moreton Bay Islands National Park – several small islands in Redland City
• 7 St Helena Island National Park – a small island off the coast of Brisbane
• 8 Teerk Roo Ra National Park
• 9 Venman Bushland National Park – a small national park nestled between Logan and Redland Cities

Understand

Greater Brisbane is what usually most non-Queenslanders usually call "Brisbane", and before a visit to South East Queensland, it is easy to assume that Greater Brisbane is the same as Brisbane, and it's often affiliated with Brisbane. Unlike the other state capital cities of Australia, Greater Brisbane developed in a way similar to the boroughs of New York City, but instead of boroughs, with local government areas instead.

Get in

By plane

The primary way of getting into Greater Brisbane is via 1 Brisbane Airport (BNE ^IATA). See the Brisbane page on getting around.

By car

The primary way that most will come from the south will usually be via Logan City, which is the closest point of Greater Brisbane from the south. This table below shows the distance from each city. Distances are in kilometres, and to the CBD of each of the five cities mentioned.

City	Brisbane	Ipswich	Logan	Moreton Bay	Redlands
Sydney (via M1/A1)	910	930	889	964	908
Melbourne (via M31, M39, A39, A2)	1665	1653	1655	1770	1747
Canberra (via M23, M31, M7, M1/A1)	1185	1205	1173	1283	1182
Gold Coast (via M1)	79	99	50	132	74
Sunshine Coast (via SR 70, M1)	106	144	138	64	128
Toowoomba (via A2, M2)	125	89	133	173	150
Tamworth (via A15, M15)	572	535	580	621	597
Gympie (via M1)	169	207	218	129	192
Dubbo (via A39, A2, M2)	842	806	832	890	866
Cairns (via A1, M1)	1681	1719	1713	1641	1704

Get around

By public transport

Brisbane is well served by public transport with a large network of trains, buses and ferries

Overview

Translink is responsible for all trains, buses, ferries and trams in South East Queensland and regional urban buses. The website and app can be used to plan a journey, including full navigation and real time updates. Apple Maps and Google Maps provide a similar experience.

A 50-cent flat fare applies to any journey, regardless of mode, distance or transfers. The only exception is an Airtrain journey to or from Brisbane Airport which costs $21.90 (Dec 2024). Refer to the website for discounted fares.

A contactless credit or debit card, go card, or paper ticket is required to travel.

A Visa, Mastercard or American Express is accepted, including those in a digital wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your fare is deducted from your card as you touch on and touch off each mode of transport. Trains and trams have fare gates or distinctive pink validators to touch before you board and after you alight. Buses and ferries have validators to touch as you board and alight. A failure to touch off each mode of transport will result in a fixed fare of up to $13.45 being charged. You can be fined $261 for travelling without a valid fare.

A go card is available at train station ticket counters, busway and tram fare machines, and selected newsagents and convenience stores. The card requires a $10 deposit. The card can be topped up with travel credit at the same locations, including train station fare machines. The maximum travel credit you can top up is $250. Refunding the deposit and travel credit can be a hassle. If you last topped up using cash it can be processed at Brisbane Airport and selected newsagents and convenience stores. If you last topped up using credit or debit card it can only be processed via an Australian bank account transfer.

A paper ticket is available at train station ticket counters and fare machines, and busway and tram fare machines.

Train network within Greater Brisbane. Note this image has been cropped just to show the lines in Greater Brisbane only. Also note that the Springfield and the Redcliffe Peninsula lines which show as "under construction" on the map are now open

By car

Gateway Motorway (M1) just south of Brisbane Airport

Most of the motorway network in SE Queensland is centred around Greater Brisbane. Getting around most suburbs in Greater Brisbane can in most cases, be done entirely on motorways, though there are some notable exceptions where using a road that isn't a motorway is quicker and easier. The motorways and major roads are as follows:

• Pacific Motorway (M1, M3) – starts at Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, and first enters at southeast Logan City, and continues to Brisbane CBD.
• Logan Motorway (M6, M2) – a short motorway starting at the M1 Pacific Motorway in Loganholme to the M2/M7 Ipswich Motorway in Gailles. The motorway is tolled, and has two separate toll points – one at Heathwood which costs $2.98 and the other at Loganlea, at a cost of $1.81 (as at April 2022).
• The M5 is not one motorway, but a series of roads, including the Centenary Highway, starting in Ipswich, which heads north-northeast and becomes the Western Freeway passing the Fig Tree Pocket Road after which it heads northeast. After Indooroopilly, the M5 becomes the Legacy Way, which is tolled and is a tunnel, bypassing Brisbane CBD. As of April 2022, the tolls cost $5.79 per car and $2.90 per motorcycle.
• The AirportLinkM7 (M7) is a short tunnelled motorway linking Fortitude Valley north of the CBD to Brisbane Airport costing $5.92 for cars (as of 2022). The route continues further south as Clem7 which has a different toll, costing $5.37.
• The Port of Brisbane Motorway and Port Drive (M4, SR 24) is a short motorway from the Gateway Motorway to the Port of Brisbane.
• Gateway Motorway (M1) – a motorway just to bypass Brisbane CBD if you're heading from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast.
• Warrego Highway and Ipswich Motorway (M2, M7) – a motorway that's the continuation of the divided Warrego Hwy to Toowoomba that heads northeast to Rocklea, continues as A7 and eventually becomes the Clem7.
• The first 14 km (8.7 mi) of the Cunningham Highway (M15 / National Highway 15) is a motorway, which later continues down southwest to Armidale and Tamworth as an undivided highway.

All cities but Redland City have at least one motorway. Brisbane by far has the most motorways both by length and number, followed by Ipswich and Logan. Moreton Bay doesn't really have a motorway of its own, its only motorway is just the Bruce Highway on its way to Cairns.

See

Brisbane has many museums, and many museums of state significance are located in the City of Brisbane. Outside, most are generally just local history museums.

Also, Greater Brisbane features a vast sprawl of countless suburbs that can be seen across the metropolitan region.

Do

While many associate South-East Queensland beaches with the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or Noosa, there are plenty of beaches in the Greater Brisbane region in the three cities that have a coastline; Brisbane, Redland City and Moreton Bay. As Brisbane's waters are the location of Brisbane's port, Port of Brisbane, the airport, and where the Brisbane River flows, it may not be the best spot to go and swim or surf, but the other two have plenty of beaches for swimming and surfing. If you're in Brisbane and are unsure on where to go, Moreton Bay is much better known than the Redlands for its beaches.

Eat

The place you could go to for food for a diverse variety of food is obviously Brisbane CBD, where you can pretty much get nearly every single type of cuisine that's available in Australia that you can think of. However, that should not be a huge surprise, as it's the CBD of Australia's third largest city.

A bit to the northeast of Brisbane CBD lies Fortitude Valley, which is Brisbane's Chinatown and there's plenty of Chinese restaurants, with both a mix of authentic Chinese cuisine and a bit of Overseas Chinese cuisine. As seafood is heavily consumed, the menus found tend to have a stronger emphasis on seafood, as opposed to the rest of Australia where pork or chicken is the main emphasis. Another place in Brisbane that has some good Chinese food owing to its large Chinese population is Sunnybank, which is Brisbane's equivalent of Melbourne's Box Hill or Sydney's Kingston. Outside Brisbane City, other places generally tend to just have what Chinese restaurants in rural areas have, and options are not the best, though the options in Logan are slightly better than the other three.