A Gold Coast tourism campaign once urged visitors to “come back and play”, but new demographics reveal many Australians are deciding to stay instead.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released figures on demographic changes in cities and regions between 2011 and 2021, and they show that the Queensland holiday hotspot has seen the biggest boom outside of capital cities.
More and more people are being drawn to the Gold Coast, and not just for the holidays.Credit:Getty
The Gold Coast suburb of Coomera saw the fastest growth, adding 11,500 people, while Pimpama saw the highest rate of expansion – 600%.
The population of regional Australia increased by 832,000, or 11%, while the number of people living in capital cities increased by 2.5 million, or 17%.
Of these, Melbourne saw the strongest growth, adding 806,800 people, followed by Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin.
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Canberra had the highest growth rate at 23%, while Adelaide had the lowest at 11%.
The latest figures also show the scale of the population boom in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, which have seen the biggest increases among metropolitan areas.
Wollert in Melbourne’s outer north increased by 24,200 people, while Schofields in Sydney’s northwest added 22,900 people.