It is a very mixed electorate, with its classification ranging from provincial in the south and rural and remote elsewhere.

It includes the city of Cairns, as well as many towns such as Cooktown, Port Douglas and Weipa, and several Indigenous communities on the Cape York Peninsula and in the Torres Strait Islands.

As of the 2021 Australian census, Leichhardt had a total of 175,620 residents (including those who are not on the electoral roll).

[2] 44.8% of people in Leichhardt are unmarried, significantly higher than the national and state averages.

Most of the electorate is almost uninhabited except for small Aboriginal communities, but the extreme southeast, consisting of the northern half of the Wet Tropics, with rich volcanic soils instead of the extraordinarily infertile lateritic sands and gravels of Cape York proper, is quite densely populated and includes urban Cairns.

There are small, intensive sugar cane, banana and mango farms in this region, though they are prone to damage from droughts and cyclones.