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Toowoomba (affectionately known as Australia's 'garden city') is a city and Local Government Area of Queensland, Australia. It is located 132km west of Queensland's capital city, Brisbane, and two hours drive from the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast beaches. With a population of 113,687 (2003 ABS estimate), Toowoomba is Australia's second largest inland city after Canberra, the nation's capital.

Toowoomba is often referred to as the Gateway to the Darling Downs.

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The city's major event occurs in September. It is the Carnival of Flowers. Each year the city presents many unique and award winning gardens. Every resident with a garden can enter the competition, and for many days during the festival, tourists and "green thumbs" are allowed to view the otherwise private gardens belonging to entrants Toowoomba. For months before the carnival, the Toowoomba City Council garden workers spend hundreds of hours, creating and maintaining council owned parks and gardens. Each year the Festival attracts thousands of tourists from throughout Australia.

The effects of the Australian drought have taken a toll on the Festival. Sadly, in 2005, Toowoomba city went on Level 4 water restrictions, meaning citizens could not water gardens, wash cars, fill or even top up pools. Luckily, the restrictions came just before the carnival and there was some rainfall before the carnival commenced. However citizens share concern over the 2006 event. As well as the water restrictions, the parade that traditionally passes through the city and finishing in Queens Park was cancelled due to wind conditions. This is the first time this has happened in the carnival's history.

The Toowoomba Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland Show is an agricultural show held each year at the "new" Toowoomba Showgrounds and Clive Berghofer Events Centre on the city's western outskirts.

In addition to education and outreach roles, the Toowoomba Show combines features of a fair, an arts and craft show, livestock and produce competitions and public entertainments. The Toowoomba Show attracts people from the City and from surrounding rural areas. Cooking, handicrafts, art and photography competitions are well patronised, and the displays of entries are popular with the public. Produce competitions have faded in recent years as Toowoomba's focus has become less rural, and the City has become increasingly urbanised.

The "new" Toowoomba Showgrounds are situated at Glenvale having been developed in 1985 after the old inner city showgrounds site was rendered untenable by problems with noise and parking, lack of space and aging facilities.

The old Showgrounds site is now the Bridge Street TAFE campus and Cobb

Toowoomba also hosts a Christian rock concert over the Easter long weekend each year. Similar in format to commercial rock concerts, the majority of events take place inside a fenced enclosure to which tickets may be purchased.

The Australian Gospel Music Festival closes off much of the inner city Queens Park reserve for camping and concert venues. Lack of parking and noise issues for inner city residents make the growing AGMF somewhat controversial, as do the substantial annual cash and in-kind from Toowoomba City Council.

Australian Gospel Music Festival

The Toowoomba Ag Show is held at the new Toowoomba Showgrounds each year, in winter. In 2005 it was held in early September. Ag Show has been running since 1992, as a showcase for vehicles, rural and agricultural machinery, technology and innovation.

Agshow

is situated at a latitude and longitude of 27°33′S 151°57′E.

The city sits on the crest of the Great Dividing Range, around 700 metres above sea level. A few streets are on the eastern side of the edge of the range, but the majority of the city is west of the divide.

The City occupies the edge of the range and the low ridges behind it. Two valleys run north from the southern boundary, each arising from springs either side of Middle Ridge near Spring Street at an altitude of around 680m. These waterways, East Creek and West Creek flow together just north of the CBD to form Gowrie Creek.

Gowrie Creek drains to the west across the Darling Downs and is a tributary of the Condamine River, part of the Murray-Darling Basin. The water flowing down Gowrie Creek makes its way some 3000 km to the mouth of the Murray River near Adelaide in South Australia. Rain which falls on the easternmost streets of Toowoomba flows east to Moreton Bay a distance of around 170 km.

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Toowoomba enjoys four distinct seasons and the rich volcanic soil in the region helps maintain the 150 public parks that are scattered across the city. Jacaranda and camphor laurel trees line many of the city streets. The city's reputation as 'The Garden City' is highlighted during the Australian Carnival of Flowers festival held in September each year. Deciduous trees from around the world line many of the parks, giving a display of Autumn colour rarely see in Australia, a continent that is almost entirely forested with evergreens.

Temperatures in Toowoomba average 27 degrees Celsius in summer and 15 degrees Celsius in winter.

Late summer sees temperatures as high as 45°C. Winter temperatures seldom go below freezing. Snow has been reported on the higher parts of the city on rare occasions but never settles.

Toowoomba's history has been preserved in its buildings. Brilliant examples of fine architecture drawing from the city's wealthy beginning's include Toowoomba City Hall, the National Trust Royal Bull's Head Inn and many examples in the heritage listed Russell Street. Immediately to the east of the CBD is the Caledonian Estate, an area of turn of the 20th Century housing ranging from humble workers cottages to large stately homes, in the classic wooden Queenslander .

Toowoomba also boasts one of the best performing arts theatres in the country. The Empire Theatre was originally opened over 90 years ago in June 1911, as a silent movie house. In February 1933, fire broke out almost completely destroying the Empire Theatre. However, the Empire was rebuilt and was reopened in November 1933. The architectural styling of the new Empire Theatre was art deco, in keeping with the trend of the 30's.

After years of neglect the Empire Theatre was extensively renovated in the late 1990s, but retains much of the Art Deco architecture and decorations for which it is famous, especially the proscenium arch. Equipped with the most modern of facilities, and able to seat 2,400 people, the Empire Theatre is now the largest regional theatre in Australia.

The City also is home to the Cobb Co Museum, hailing to the famous mail company's beginnings as a small mail run in the 1800's to transport mail and passangers to Brisbane and beyond. It also houses Australia's largest collection of horse-drawn vehicles.

Toowoomba contains and largely consists of the City of Toowoomba (governed by the Toowoomba City Council), but the last twenty years has seen the rapid growth of satellite towns and an expanding urban fringe in the surrounding largely rural shires of Crows Nest, Gatton, Cambooya, and Jondaryan. This urbanisation is changing the demographics of these shires significantly and displacing their centres of power to the Toowoomba urban fringe.

Recently Toowoomba councillor Lyle Shelton has called for Toowoomba's boundaries to be expanded to encompass the area some refer to as "Greater Toowoomba".

The City of Toowoomba is a local government area in Queensland, approxiamately 150km west of Brisbane.

Elections are held every four years (previously every three years) with ballots for the mayoralty and the councillors being held simultaneously. Voting is compulsory for all eligible electors. Councillors are elected from a single pool of candidates by a "First Past the Post" poll, Toowoomba having abandonded the system of wards (electorates). The most recent election was in March 2004 the first for a four year term, the next Toowoomba City Council election will be held in 2008, at the same time as other local government areas in Queensland.

As with other local governments in Queensland, Toowoomba City Council is bound by the i. Under this act and other legislation, the state government has devolved the power to make local laws (previously by-laws) onto Toowoomba City Council.

Toowoomba City Council offers a variety of cultural services to the community, including the Municipal Library and the Toowoomba Art Gallery. The council restored and substantially funds The Empire Theatre.

The main offices for the council are at the Toowoomba City Hall complex clustered around the northwest corner of Ruthven and Herries Streets.

The current mayor is Dianne Thorley.

The two seats that are drawn from Toowoomba City itself are Toowoomba North and Toowoomba South. Toowoomba South remains a safe seat for the National Party.

In the 2001 state election, Kerry Shine, a member of the Australian Labor Party, became the member for Toowoomba North. The member for Toowoomba South, Mike Horan, has held the seat for the National Party since 1991. The seat has never left the non-labor parties since federation.

Those western suburbs of Greater Toowoomba that lie in the Shire of Jondaryan form part of the seat of Darling Downs.

In addition, the southern suburbs of Toowoomba lie in the seat of Cunningham.

Toowoomba has formed the core of a Commonwealth electoral seat since [Australian federationFederation]]. Originally Darling Downs, the seat was abolished and the new seat of Groom was created in 1984, with the effect (largely) of renaming the seat. The seat has always been held by the non-Labor parties.

Ian MacFarlane, a member of The Liberal Party of Australia has held the seat since 1998.

During the 1989 Queensland State Elections, the Toowoomba based Logos Foundation caused controversy with a questionare on "moral" issues sent to Candidates and the results published in newpaper advertisements.

In 2003 Aboriginal Activist Stephen Hagan created a stir over the name of the "E.S. Nigger Brown Stand" at a Toowoomba sports field. Brown was an anglo Australian, who was known as "Nigger Brown" during his career as a Rugby player. As in the USA, in Australia the word Nigger was a racial slur.

In 2005 a racist group calling itself the White Pride Coalition put up racist posters in Toowoomba and Crows Nest, harassed African (mostly Sudanese) refugees living in Toowoomba and achieved national notoriety.

In 2005 the Mayor proposed a controversial plan to recycle sewage into one of the dams to be used for drinking water http:]. This project has not yet been approved by the Council nor received Federal government funding.

The city has twice been voted the best city to live in Australia. Factors which influenced this included the city's low cost of living, pleasant surroundings, clean air and the safe, friendly atmosphere. It has the benefits of city living without the pollution.

The largest industry employers in Toowoomba (2004) are retail trade (17.8%); health and community services (13.3%); manufacturing (12.2%); and education (11.1%). Professional employment was the most prominent occupation (18.2%) followed by clerical, sales and service workers (17.7%) and tradespersons and related workers (13.3%).

The City also boasts many large shopping centres including Grand Central Shopping Centre, Garden Town, Clifford Gardens and KMart Plaza.

Toowoomba is regarded nationally as a major educational centre, boasting more secondary schools per capita then any other Australian city. Harristown State High School located on South Street is arguably Toowoomba's most popular school and currently holds creditation with the Council of International Schools. They are also current Queensland Rock Eisteddfod Challenge champions. The University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba was established in 1967 and has approximately 27,000 enrolments. The University of Southern Queensland has the fifth largest enrolment of international students in Australia due to its distance education expertise, English language courses and university bridging courses. The university contributes more than $61 million annually to the regional economy and was awarded the 2000

Toowoomba is serviced by one public hospital, Toowoomba Base Hospital, and two private hospitals - Saint Vincents Hospital and St. Andrew's Toowoomba Hospital.