Download coordinates as: Chinchilla is a rural town and locality in the Western Downs Region, Queensland, Australia.

[2][3] Chinchilla is known as the 'Melon Capital of Australia', and plays host to a Melon Festival every second year in February.

[8][9] The name Chinchilla is a corruption of the Aboriginal word "tintinchilla" or "jinchilla" indicating cypress pine, possibly recorded by explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt.

[10] In 1847, British pastoralist squatter, Matthew Buscall Goggs, claimed around 37,000 acres of land along the Condamine River and Charleys Creek, calling his property Chinchilla.

In 1849, with the help of military actions of Native Police units under Frederick Walker, Goggs was able to defeat and disperse most of the Baranggum resistance.

In 1857, Goggs the sold Chinchilla property for £25,000 to the influential pastoralist and politician Gideon Lang.

As the Western railway line was extended west across the Darling Downs from Toowoomba and Dalby, a temporary construction camp was established on the banks of Charley's Creek which developed into a town.

[17]The Chinchilla War Memorial was originally located near the railway overpass and was unveiled on 30 January 1919 by the Queensland Governor, Hamilton Goold-Adams.

In 1977, it was substantially refurbished and relocated to the Returned and Services League of Australia club and was unveiled on 17 March 1979.

[27] It was established by three Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart with an initial enrolment of 63 students.

[30] Experimental work took place in the town to assess the success of the Cactoblastis cactorum moths in the eradication of the pest.

[33] In 2018, Chinchilla won a national competition run by Wotif to create the Next Big Thing as a new tourist attraction.

The 8-metre (26 ft) long Big Melon was installed next to the town's information centre in November 2018.

[1] Chinchilla has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: Agriculture is the mainstay of the community, with beef and pork production, wool growing, and horticulture traditionally underwriting the local economy.

However, with the recent resources boom, the Kogan Creek Power Station (and other coal and gas projects) have begun to inject welcome cash into the town and Chinchilla is experiencing mass growth and development.

[38] The Western Downs Green Power Hub commenced construction in the Chinchilla region in July 2020.

[41] The Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE annex is located in the high school grounds and works closely with local business and industries.

Five general practitioners operate in the area, along with an occupational therapist, optometrist, podiatrist, physiotherapists and chiropractors.

[49] Chinchilla has a Cultural Centre, which includes a 700-seat auditorium, cinema and function room, outdoor patio, theatrette, plus bar and kitchen facilities.

[citation needed] The Cultural Centre also houses a cinema showing recently released movies.

There are also clubs and facilities for soccer (Chinchilla Bears,) touch football, rugby league, cricket, tennis, squash, motocross, gymnastics, indoor netball, taekwondo, football and lawn bowls.

[citation needed] Chinchilla News and Murilla Advertiser is the local newspaper.

The mainstays of Chinchilla's tourism industry are the Historical Museum, fishing and fossicking for petrified wood.

[60] The Chinchilla White Gum (Eucalyptus argophloia) is also unique to the area, and can be seen on some of the tourist drives which are marked around the region.

[61] As Chinchilla produces 25% of Australia's melons (including watermelon, rockmelon and honeydew),[49] the first Chinchilla Melon Festival [1] was held in 1994 by local producers and businessmen, to lift the town's spirits after the severe drought experienced in the early 1990s.

[62] In 2009, the Melon Festival won the Queensland Regional Achievement and Community Award for Tourism Event.

[citation needed] Greyhound Australia operates bus services daily between Brisbane and Miles via Chinchilla.

[65] and also operates 2-3 daily bus services between Brisbane and Mount Isa via Longreach and Charleville, and three buses a week between Toowoomba and Rockhampton, along the Dawson Highway.

As it is a small town, there is no public transport (besides a taxi), although many coal and gas companies run contracted buses out to their sites.