The Shire of Winton is a Local Government Area located in south western Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It covers an area of 62000.7 square kilometres (23,938.6 sq mi), and has existed as a local government entity since 1887. It is named for the Barcoo River

Barcoo River

The Barcoo River in western Queensland, Australia that rises on the northern slopes of the Warrego Range, flows in a south westerly direction and unites with the Thomson River to form Cooper Creek. The first European to see the river was Thomas Mitchell in 1846, who named it Victoria Stream...

 which reaches a confluence

Confluence

Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 with the Thomson River

Thomson River (Queensland)

The Thomson River is situated in western Queensland, Australia, and forms part of the Lake Eyre Basin. The river was named by the explorer, Edmund Kennedy, in the 1840s....

 in the shire to form Cooper Creek

Cooper Creek

Cooper Creek is one of the most famous and yet least visited rivers in Australia. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its tributaries and is one of three major Queensland river systems that flow into the Lake Eyre Basin...

.

The major industry in the shire is beef production and some opal

Opal

Opal is an amorphous form of silica related to quartz, a mineraloid form, not a mineral. 3% to 21% of the total weight is water, but the content is usually between 6% to 10%. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most...

 mining. There has been some development of the known oil and gas reserves in the region.

History

The Winton Division was created on 25 September 1886, and was subject to the Divisional Boards Act 1879. With the passage of the Local Authorities Act 1902, Winton became a shire on 31 March 1903. It subsequently lost an area in its northwest to the Shire of McKinlay on 24 July 1930.

Towns and localities

• Winton
  Winton, Queensland
  -Qantas:Winton was one of the founding towns of the Australian airline Qantas. The first board meeting was held at the Winton Club on 10 February 1921.-Waltzing Matilda:...
  
  
• Corfield
• Middleton
• Opalton (a ghost town)

Population

Year	Population
1933	2,807
1947	2,509
1954	2,532
1961	3,043
1966	2,688
1971	2,095
1976	1,938
1981	1,995
1986	1,986
1991	1,877
1996	1,731
2001	1,937
2006	1,667