Yeppoon

Yeppoon is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Livingstone, Queensland, Australia.

Yeppoon is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Livingstone, Queensland, Australia. Yeppoon is renowned for its beaches, tropical climate, and the islands out on the bay.Twenty-five minutes from the city of Rockhampton, Yeppoon is the principal town on the Capricorn Coast, a string of seaside communities stretching more than 150 kilometres (93 mi) from north to south.The beaches and shallow coves provide a destination both for tourists and retirees settling down in Central Queensland. Offshore, there are 27 islands including Great Keppel Island which is 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Yeppoon.

The Capricorn Coast was part of the traditional lands of the Darumbal Aboriginal people. Yeppoon was first settled by the Ross family in 1865 who took up large landholding along the length of the Capricorn Coast.Fruit crops, cattle, and wool were the major industries of the early town. A short-lived period of sugar cane growing followed from 1883 to 1903, which failed due to unseasonal rains and lack of financial backing. Along with other sugar growing areas of Australia, South Sea Islanders were used as labourers on the sugar plantations, often without their consent (see blackbirding). Pineapples, mangoes, and other tropical fruit became the mainstay of local agriculture in the new century, with cattle grazing and fishing also contributing to the local economy.Yeppoon Provisional School opened on 4 May 1885 and became Yeppoon State School on 1 October 1889.St Ursula's College, a day and boarding school for girls, opened on 12 March 1918.St Brendan's College, a day and boarding school for boys, opened on 8 October 1939.Yeppoon Infants State School opened on 24 January 1955, but closed in 1968.Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School opened in 1958.Yeppoon State High School opened on 28 January 1969.The Bay View Tower motel and restaurant become Yeppoon first high rise in 1986.On 20 February 2015, severe tropical cyclone Marcia crossed the Capricorn Coast near Shoalwater Bay as a category 5 Cyclone. The storm destroyed more than 150 houses in Yeppoon and left more than 13,500 residents without power.

The Yeppoon Public Library was opened in 1990 and went through a major refurbishment in 2017.Yeppoon is within the local government area of Shire of Livingstone (between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Rockhampton Region following a local government amalgamation that was reversed in 2014).

In the 2016 census the locality of Yeppoon had a population of 6,334 people.

The Capricorn Coast experiences a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa/Cwa).Due to its location in the southern tropics, the Capricorn Coast experiences hot summers without the extreme humidity of Far North Queensland, and mild winters.