Queensland’s fastest growing city named
After a year of suburban expansion, one Queensland city is seeing it population surge in size over the past 12 months – a surprise figure revealed by its local Mayor.
Ipswich mayor Teresa Harding said that as of January 1 2026, the city has officially counted 270,624 residents. This number represents a growth of more than 10,000 in the last year, about the population of Innisfail, and 30,000 in the last four years.
“The city isn’t just growing, it’s accelerating,” Mayor Harding said.
“Everyone from right across the state, from Beaudesert to Innisfail, obviously wants to come live, work and play in Ipswich. In fact, it is people from right across Australia and the world, with 300 new international migrants becoming Australian citizens joining us too,” Harding said.
Harding named Springfield, Spring Mountain, Springfield Central, Springfield Lakes, Ripley and South Ripley as the suburbs that experienced the most dramatic population increases.
On anuary 1, 2022, Springfield had a population of 33,333 residents, this had now reached 38,415. Ripley and South Ripley had 10,183, the number almost doubled in four years to 19,389.
“We love our growing city, but it comes with a price: there needs to be greater state and federal investment to help council cater for all those people, houses to accommodate them and roads and buildings,” Harding said.
Infrastructure, planning and assets committee chairperson councillor Andrew Antoniolli said council’s most recent quarterly data highlighted the city’s sustained growth.
“Total dwellings across the region are just short of six figures, now a combined 98,313, with more than 12,000 in the greater Springfield area alone,” Antoniolli said.
Antoniolli said council was supporting the housing availability and affordability required for the entire South East Queensland region.
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“We are on track to become a city of 530,000 within 20 years and that will require another 100,000 homes,” he said.
Antoniolli said the figure meant it was important to continue lobbying levels of government to partner with council to build improved transport infrastructure for the Ipswich area.
“With the Ripley Valley Priority Development Area growing by the day, we urgently need other levels of government to commit to and complete improvements to the Cunningham and Centenary highways and a public transport corridor linking Springfield Central and Ipswich Central,” Antoniolli said.
The 2025 quarterly Planning and Regulatory Services report released last week showed that Ipswich saw 725 new lots created, 877 new dwellings, 6.28km of pathways and bikeways created and 6.59km of additional local roads from October 1 to December 31.
The report also showed that the top requests from ratepayers across Ipswich included illegal dumping investigations, illegal parking on footpaths, abandoned vehicle compliance, unregistered dogs and overgrown private property.
