CAPE YORK RESIDENTS HAVE CHANCE TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE MAP

Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Craig Wallace, today encouraged residents of Cape York to become involved in the creation of their community’s history by suggesting new place names.

Minister Wallace is inviting residents to name a geographic feature or area of land by lodging an application with his department.

“The Department of Natural Resources and Water administers the Place Names Act 1994, which controls the official naming of localities, suburbs and geographical features within local government areas,” Mr Wallace said.

“Queensland has over 40,000 official place names and these are constantly being added to by the community,” Mr Wallace said.

“People have a chance to be part of history by creating a new Queensland place name,” he said.

“We do not accept place names that honour living people, we try to avoid duplicating names and commercial names but otherwise people are free to put their mark on the map.”

Some of Queensland’s more unusual names include Baking Board (Chinchilla Shire), Yorkeys Knob (Cairns), Macaroni (Carpentaria Shire), Hell Hole Gorge National Park (Quilpie Shire), Silver Spur (Inglewood Shire), Beer Creek (Esk Shire) and Ginger Beer Creek (Calliope Shire).

Close to 110 new and amended place names were added to the database over the past year.

According to the Department of Natural Resources and Water's (NRW) place names database, Kowanyama was once called Mitchell River, but was re-named by the Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs in 1972. Kowanyama is a local word indicating many waters.

“A large number of our suburbs and place names are derived from Aboriginal words associated with those areas," he said.

"Mapoon, for instance, is the local name originally applied to the sand beach inside the entrance to Port Musgrave. We believe it came from the Tjongkangi language.

"The name Pormpuraaw is associated with the erection of a large bark house at Edward River, signifying a welcome to a traditional home. Pormpuraaw itself was once called Edward River Community.

"Yarrabah is an Aboriginal word meaning place of trees, while Weipa appears to be from the Anhathangayth language, and is a word used to indicate fighting ground.”

Mr Wallace said many other place names commemorated explorers, early settlers or well known local identities.

"Cape York itself was named by Lieutenant James Cook RN in honour of His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, and the Palmer River was named after Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, a pastoralist and politician, who was Premier from 1870-74.

"The township of Coen gets its name from the Coen River. In 1623 Jan Carstensz, a navigator for the Dutch East India Company ship Pera, named the first Coen River, which has since become the Archer River. The Coen River we know today is a tributary of the Archer.

"The word Coen itself honours Jan Pieterszoon Coen who was Governor- General of the Dutch East Indies."

Minister Wallace said the place names database reflected the diverse and fascinating background of many of the state’s suburbs and towns.

“While many of the names on the database are European in origin, a large number reflect Aboriginal culture and language,” Mr Wallace said.

Other interesting place names include:

Miallo – an Aboriginal word indicating wild country

Julatten – an Aboriginal word for small creek

Lake Eacham – Eacham is reportedly an Aboriginal word meaning big spring

Lake Barrine – Barrine is a corruption of “barrang”, an Aboriginal word indicating big water.

Malanda – an Aboriginal word indicating the stream known as the Upper Johnstone River, possibly with the connotation little stream with big stones.

Millaa Millaa – a corruption of “millai millai, possibly from the Yindinji language indicating a fruit bearing plant Eleagnus latifolia.

Mr Wallace said people could look up the name of their suburb or town by visiting: www.nrw.qld.gov.au/property/place_names.html

"The place names website is an evolving document and we are always on the lookout for new information about how a suburb, town or land feature got its name."

Media inquiries: Clare Gillic, Minister's Office, 3896 3688