- Brisbane is Australia’s largest municipality and the third largest in the world, with more than one million residents.

- Brisbane City Council is the largest local authority in the southern hemisphere and has approximately 8000 employees. 

- Brisbane’s first residents were the Jagera and Turrbal Indigenous clans, with the first Europeans establishing a penal settlement at Redcliffe Point in 1824 that moved to North Quay’s current location in 1825.

- Brisbane’s premier building, City Hall, took 10 years to build at a cost of around 980,000 pounds, and City Hall offices opened for business on 3 January 1928.

- For 30 years City Hall was the tallest building in Brisbane. The chiming of the clock bell could be heard as far away as Wynnum and the clock could be read through binoculars from Camp Hill. 
 
- Brisbane’s worst natural disaster in recorded history was the 1974 floods that killed 16 people and incurred more than $800million in damage at the time 

- Hosting of the 1988 World Expo catapulted Brisbane onto the world stage, and recent events such as the refurbishment of the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2007 and the Gallery of Modern Art’s exclusive Picasso 2008 exhibition (the first city outside of Europe to show the artist’s collection) continue to reinvent the city’s cultural landscape.

- The Old Windmill on Wickham Terrace, built in 1828 as a mill for grinding corn, is both Brisbane and Queensland’s oldest surviving building.

- Brisbane Grammar School is the city’s oldest independent school. 

- Current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is the first prime minister to come from Brisbane. 

- More than 26 million passengers have used CityCats since they started operating in 1996. 

- Brisbane City Council buses drive 2.256 million trips covering an estimated 50 million kilometres between 6750 bus stops each year – that’s around 65 return trips to the moon. 

- Brisbane buses carried more than 65 million passengers in 2008 – the highest level of patronage since 1974 and roughly equal to the population of the United Kingdom. 

- Residents recycled 82,000 tonnes of recycling and 46,500 tonnes of green waste in the 2007-08 financial year – an increase of six per cent and 24 per cent respectively compared to the previous year. 

- There are around 560 kilometres of bikeways in Brisbane – that is like riding from Brisbane to Gladstone. 

- Brisbane has more than 4000 kilometres of constructed footpaths which is equivalent to walking from Brisbane to Perth. 

- Brisbane Council libraries have around 1.35 million items borrowed 9.98 million times by 5.7 million visitors. 

- The first Australian bridge to be designed exclusively for buses, cyclists and pedestrians, the Eleanor Schonell Bridge river crossing between Dutton Park and St Lucia, opened in 2006. 

- Brisbane’s transport infrastructure continues to be improved with the current construction of the city’s first cross-river tunnel and Australia’s longest road tunnel – the Clem Jones Tunnel – along with the Hale Street Link and Tank Street bridges. 

- To match the increased usage of public transport, an extra 424 bus services, 120 new buses, 385 bus drivers, and three CityCats were added to Council’s fleet in 2008. This is part of the Lord Mayor’s commitment to 19 CityCats, 500 new buses and 100km of bikeways by 2012.

For more information about Brisbane150 events visit www.ourbrisbane.com/brisbane150 or phone Council’s Contact Centre on 3403 8888.

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