Many people have a difficult time coming to terms with the size and emptiness of Queensland. No wonder. The population of approximately three million is scattered across a state five times the size of Japan or the British Isles.

Astonishing though it is to people from more densely populated parts of the world, you can drive for a hundred kilometres in parts of Queensland without seeing another car. But that's one of its joys, the locals will tell you, one of the reasons for living in Queensland if you have any sense, visiting if you aren't so fortunate.

Even in Australia, Queensland has a mystique all its own. It's known as the Sunshine State where `banana benders' live (they grow a lot of bananas and someone has to bend them). But according to Queenslanders, a well known promotional slogan sums it all up - `Beautiful one day... perfect the next.' In past days, many people in certain southern Australian states snickered smugly at what was perceived to be Queensland's country cousin image. No longer. Now many of those same southerners are migrating to the Sunshine State to bask in the state's glorious climate and growing sophistication.

Brisbane, the state capital so many other Australian cities would like to emulate, can boast emerging style as well as clean, uncrowded streets and peak hour traffic that lasts all of about an hour. While Brisbane can't claim Sydney's spectacular harbour, the Brisbane River meanders through the city, giving its own nautical atmosphere. Brisbanites are making more and more use of their river, dashing to waterside restaurants by water taxi and walking or biking along the banks. The city is coming alive with cosmopolitan little restaurants and shops, often hidden away in old buildings beautifully restored. Brisbane is a successful mixture of imaginative glass office towers and restored 19th century sandstone in a palm tree setting. `Quality of Life' is a phrase which Queenslanders frequently enjoy to drop casually into conversation when entertaining interstate visitors.

The Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame, opened in April 1988 in outback Queensland, in the town of Longreach. The Hall celebrates the fondly held belief of most Australians that deep down they are at one with the mythical outback and the hardships endured by pioneering ancestors.

The outback in general is just one of the many drawcards used to sell Australia abroad. That so many of the nation's icons are in Queensland is worth pondering; but indeed Qantas had its birth in the Queensland outback; Banjo Patterson wrote Waltzing Matilda while visiting a Queensland family out near Winton; the famous Royal Flying Doctor Service came to life in Cloncurry in outback Queensland, as did the School of the Air, to educate by radio children isolated on vast properties across thousands of kilometres. As a result of all this, the Matilda Highway came into being.

This is the highly marketable name for a series of existing outback roads which pass through these famous areas in Australia's history. With so much of the nation's history and heritage tied up in the myth and legend of the outback, there is little wonder that so many Australians can feel sentimental about it. Queenslanders can claim much of the myth and legend as theirs exclusively.

If all Australians harbour a secret piece of themselves that will be forever outback, the majority of Queenslanders live on the coastal strip, stretching from the golden beaches of the south to the tropical rain forests of the far north. This allows them to lay claim to another Australian icon - the Great Barrier Reef.

The Reef, on its way down from Papua New Guinea, extends south along Queensland for more than 2,000 km, to a point approximately off Bundaberg, about four fifths of the way down to coast. But scratch any coastal Queenslander and he or she will wax lyrical about the beauties of the Reef, how it is the world's largest living thing, how it is the only living thing visible from the moon and how it must be protected. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was created in 1976 to do just that, and today the Park is managed in zones - various zones being set aside for various activities - in order to protect and preserve all manner of marine life, be it coral, birds, fish or turtles. While there are resorts on some of the Reef islands, and many day trips out to the Reef from various parts of the mainland the concern about the Reef's preservation is one shared by all Queenslanders. It is after all, one of the wonders of the natural world.

Other Queenslanders will confidently suggest four wheel drive expeditions to explore the depths of their tropical rainforest. And remind you quietly that Queensland is, after all, the only state graced with such growth. The rainforests of the tropical north are mysterious green depths that come alive with the calls of hundreds of birds and countless kinds of other unique native wildlife. Entering this moist, cool, velvet green world is like closing a door on the heat outside. Queensland is still a place where crusty old characters in far flung pubs spin tall tales. And yet at the same time the cities of the Sunshine State, particularly Brisbane, can boast a wealth of sophistication.

Queenslanders are increasingly proud of their state, especially when it comes to showing off so many Australian icons that just happen to be in Queensland.