Download coordinates as: Capalaba (/kəˈpæləbɑː/ kə-PAL-ə-bah) is an urban locality in the City of Redland, Queensland, Australia.
[3] The suburb has large shopping and commercial centres with two malls and a major bus station, as well as light industrial zones surrounded by bushland and residential streets, making it the second most populous suburb in the Redlands.
[4] Surrounding suburbs include Alexandra Hills, Birkdale, and Sheldon, also in Redland City, along with Burbank and Chandler (and formerly Capalaba West), which lie within Brisbane.
[citation needed] Tingalpa Creek marks the border between the present-day suburb Capalaba in Redland City (to the east) and the City of Brisbane (to the west),[5] making the suburb a gateway to the coastal Redlands region for urban Brisbanites.
[6] The name of Capalaba is believed to be derived from the Indigenous Yugarabul word for the ringtail possum, a marsupial native to the area.
[7][8] European settlement began in the 1850s, led by farmers, lumberjacks, and sawmill operators.
[11][5][9] In the early days, the community was split into three settlements known as The Rocks, the Sawmills, and Upper Tingalpa.
[16] In July 1925, local Methodists began to raise funds to build a church.
[9][22][23] The construction of the Leslie Harrison Dam (completed in 1968) created a major source of freshwater for the then Redland Shire in the 1960s.
[5] This led to considerable growth in residential, commercial and industrial land during the 1970s in this former rural area.
[12] In 2005 the two schools merged to create Capalaba State College, occupying the combined sites.
[13] Capalaba Park Shopping Centre opened to the public in 1981 on the site of Queensland's first drive-in theatre.
[30][31] Capalaba West was a related suburb located on the opposite side of Tingalpa Creek, and was part of the City of Brisbane rather than the Redlands.
The other top responses for country of birth were New Zealand (6.6%), England (4.4%), South Africa (1.0%), the Philippines (1.0%), and India (0.9%).
[52] The Capalaba bus station[53] connects the suburb to much of the Redlands and Eastern Brisbane.