Download coordinates as: Gayndah (/ɡeɪndə/)[2] is a town and locality in the North Burnett Region, Queensland, Australia.

The Mungar Junction to Monto Branch railway line once passed through the town, but it has since been closed and now lies abandoned.

When the foundations of Gayndah were being laid there were only a few squatters on the Burnett River, and these were nearly all educated men of good families with command of money and the confidence of the banks and financial institutions.

[10] This suggests that Gayndah may be the oldest officially gazetted town in Queensland, although the Moreton Bay penal colony of 47 people was established at Redcliffe on Moreton Bay in 1824 but relocated in 1825 to a site on the Brisbane River (now Brisbane's central business district).

Gayndah and Ipswich were regional towns of similar size and competed with Brisbane to become the capital of Queensland when it became a separate colony from New South Wales in 1859.

The main impetus to the growth of Brisbane and the development of a distinctive city centre came through the introduction of self-government, hand-in-hand with immigration and general economic expansion.

[11] Gayndah was a centre of early sheep properties in southern Queensland (then NSW) and where many Chinese men travelled via Amoy and then Marybourough to work as shepherds.

As early as 1851 it was declared that: "Almost every station in the two districts of Wide Bay and Burnett is supplied with Chinese or Coolie labourers, ..." The same writer also acknowledged that their "wages are so small they have nothing to lay out.

"[12] However as their indentured where for five years only once free to seek employment at more equitable rates many of these men remained in the area and often applied for naturalisation as British subjects to allow them to take up land.

[13] This is a population that was added to by the arrival of people from the more southern Cantonese Pearl River Delta area so that by the late 1860s in a discussion about Police Magistrates in the Queensland Legislative Assembly it was declared that: "There was a large Chinese population settled at Gayndah, and they were bound to protect those people ...".

Historian Matt J Fox spoke of Gayndah in 1923: "The Gazette now represents the Press in Gayndah, which is a very prosperous town of nearly a thousand people, the centre of a thriving district of farmers and fruit-growers and squatters, with a rural population of over 4,000 people".

[17] On 8 September 1919 the Gayndah War Memorial was dedicated by the Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for Burnett, Bernard Corser.

[17] During World War II, Gayndah was the location of RAAF No.8 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), completed in 1942 and closed on 29 August 1944.

[17] The foundation stone of the Gayndah Methodist Church was laid on 28 October 1967 by Reverend Ivan Wells Alcorn.

[27] The streets of Gayndah were closed for filming and a street-scape was created to emulate the 19th century period of the screenplay.

Gayndah was chosen because much of its early, country town architecture was intact and reflected the period effectively.

[citation needed] The Gayndah branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association meets at 5 Pineapple Street.

North Burnett Regional Council own and manage the boat ramps, facilities and recreation areas.

[52] Facilities include two boat ramps, picnic shelters, barbecues, public toilets and parking.