Queensland is famous for being a tropical paradise in Australia. It's an outdoor lover's dream with over 200 national parks, forests, and beaches. Home to five UNESCO World Heritage sights, including the Great Barrier Reef, Fraser Island, and Wet Tropics, Queensland has no shortage of historical landmarks worth seeing. It's also home to Daintree Rainforest, the world's oldest tropical lowland rainforest at approximately 180 million years!,Queensland gets its name from the English Royal Family. In 1859, Queen Victoria I granted Queensland its own colony, and the residents called it Queensland. Earlier settlers called the region Edenglassie, a combination of Edinburgh and Glasgow, major cities in Scotland. Before settlement, the area that is now central Brisbane was inhabited by the Turrbal people, who called their country Mianjin/Meanjin.,Queensland is the second-largest state in Australia, after Western Australia. Queensland spans 1,720,000 square-kilometres. To put that into a global perspective, Queensland is seven times larger than Great Britain and five times larger than the entire country of Japan. It's home to Australia's third-largest city, Brisbane, which has a population of 1.5 million. Other large cities in Queensland include Gold Coast, Townsville, Cairns, and Toowoomba.,Choosing how long your Queensland getaway should be is up to your preferences, but you'll likely want at least three days. If you're visiting from further away, you might want to plan a few days in various destinations within Queensland. Perhaps three days on the Gold Coast, three days in Brisbane, three days a the Whitsundays—it's up to you and your holiday style.