Today’s Courier-Mail editorial Parties neglect our regions at their peril contains an interesting factoid:

…a majority of the population in this state lives outside the southeastern conurbation with a string of major provincial cities along a vast coastline…

Is this correct? No, not according to most people’s definition of South-East Queensland or the “southeastern conurbation”, which must include at least the Brisbane metropolitan region and the Gold Coast. Usually the Sunshine Coast is included, too. This is the 200 km City that Peter Spearritt first started writing about last decade.

Consider the population figures in the chart below from the 2016 Census (see this QGSO brief) which show around two-in-three Queenslanders live in SEQ. According to the Census, SEQ had 3.19 million usual residents in August 2016, while the state as a whole had 4.70 million usual residents, meaning SEQ’s share was around 68%.