page_title: Gold Coast, Queensland
section_title: Beaches
hierarchical_section_title: Gold Coast, Queensland / Geography / Beaches
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to Surfer's Paradise Beach, Gold Coast, Queensland.
context_page_description: The Gold Coast is a coastal city in the Australian state of Queensland, approximately 66 kilometres south-southeast of the state capital Brisbane and immediately north of the border with New South Wales. The demonym for the Gold Coast is Gold Coaster. With an estimated population of 679,127, at June 2019, the Gold Coast is the sixth-largest city in Australia, making it the largest non-capital city, and Queensland's second-largest city.
  Gold Coast is a major tourist destination with a sunny, subtropical climate and has become widely known for its world-class surfing beaches, high-rise dominated skyline, theme parks, nightlife, and rainforest hinterland. The city is part of the nation's entertainment industry with television productions and a major film industry. The city hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games which ran from 4 to 15 April 2018.
context_section_description: The city consists of 70 kilometres (43 mi) of coastline, with some of the most popular surf breaks in Australia and the world including, South Stradbroke Island, The Spit, Main Beach, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Mermaid Beach, Nobby's Beach, Miami, Burleigh Beach, Burleigh Heads, Tallebudgera Beach, Palm Beach, Currumbin Beach, Tugun, Bilinga, Kirra, Coolangatta, Greenmount, Rainbow Bay, Snapper Rocks and Froggies Beach. Duranbah Beach is one of the world's best known surfing beaches and is often thought of as being part of Gold Coast City, but is actually just across the New South Wales state border in the Tweed Shire.
  There are also beaches along many of the Gold Coast's 860 km (530 mi) of navigable tidal waterways. Popular inland beaches include Southport, Budds Beach, Marine Stadium, Currumbin Alley, Tallebudgera Estuary, Jacobs Well, Jabiru Island, Paradise Point, Harley Park Labrador, Santa Barbara, Boykambil and Evandale Lake.
  Beach safety and management
  The Gold Coast has Australia's largest professional surf lifesaving service to protect people on the beaches and to promote surf safety throughout the community. The Queensland Department of Primary Industries carries out the Queensland Shark Control Program (SCP) to protect swimmers from sharks. Sharks are caught by using nets and baited drumlines off the major swimming beaches. Even with the SCP, sharks do range within sight of the patrolled beaches. Lifeguards will clear swimmers from the water if it is considered that there is a safety risk.
  Gold Coast beaches have experienced periods of severe beach erosion. In 1967, a series of 11 cyclones removed most of the sand from Gold Coast beaches. The Government of Queensland engaged engineers from Delft University in the Netherlands to advise what to do about the beach erosion. The Delft Report was published in 1971 and outlined a series of works for Gold Coast Beaches including Gold Coast Seaway, works at Narrow Neck that resulted in the Northern Gold Coast Beach Protection Strategy and works at the Tweed River that became the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project.
  By 2005 most of the recommendations of the 1971 Delft Report had been implemented. City of Gold Coast commenced implementation of the Palm Beach Protection Strategy but ran into considerable opposition from the community participating in a NO REEF protest campaign. The City of Gold Coast Council then committed to completing a review of beach management practices to update the Delft Report. The Gold Coast Shoreline Management Plan will be delivered by organisations including the Environmental Protection Agency, City of Gold Coast and the Griffith Centre for Coastal Management. Gold Coast City is also investing into the quality and capacity of the Gold Coast Oceanway that provides sustainable transport along Gold Coast beaches.
caption: The entrance to Surfers Paradise beach
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P92", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2005:10:28 12:44:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "255", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2261", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10653", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:10:29 10:24:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:10:29 10:24:53", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "8", "EXIF SubSecTime": "562", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "700", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "525", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2189", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}