Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach is a coastal locality in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland, Australia.

Airlie Beach is a coastal locality in the Whitsunday Region of Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Airlie Beach had a population of 1,208 people.

The name derived from the former town of Airlie and unbounded locality of Airlie Beach. Airlie was named following a request by the Lands Department in December 1935 for the Proserpine Shire Council to provide a name for a new sub-division on the coast. It is almost certain that the town was named for the parish of Airlie, in Scotland, as the name was suggested by the chairman of the former Proserpine Shire Council, Robert Shepherd, who was born in nearby Montrose, Scotland. The official name was Airlie from 1936 until 1987, when it was amalgamated into the larger town of Whitsunday while Airlie Beach became the official name of the locality.Airlie Beach Post Office opened on 2 November 1959.In December 1956, 18 allotments were offered for auction as Perpetual Town Leases by the Department of Public Lands office. The map advertising the auction states the allotments were situated approximately 15 miles north-east of Proserpine.In recent years there have been shark attacks off the coast of Airlie Beach. In 2018 there was 2 near fatal attacks and the most recent attack occurred on 29 October 2019.Airlie Beach has a high number of residents working in the tourism and hospitality industries and in 2020 the town was named one of the most likely Australian towns to suffer for the longest from the economic downturn caused by the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic.