Ormeau

Ormeau, a residential suburb on the Pacific Highway in the Gold Coast hinterland, is 42 km from central Brisbane and 30 km north of Southport. Its northern boundary adjoins Yatala and its southern boundary is the Pimpama River.

Ormeau was named after an early sugar plantation (c1871) owned by A.J. Boyd. The birthplace of Boyd's wife was apparently Ormeau Road, a main south-eastern thoroughfare of Belfast, Ireland, that leads to a bridge and a park of the same name.

Ormeau was one of the numerous stopping places on the South Coast railway (1889), set among farms that were transferring from sugar, maize and arrowroot to dairying. A school, opened in 1878, was on the South Coast road just north of Pimpama Creek. Situated between Yatala (which had a hotel and a store) and Pimpama, Ormeau had few facilities. In 1949, apart from farmers and a couple of banana growers, only a sawmill and the school were recorded in the post office directory.

In the mid-1980s the Norfolk Village estate (also known as Cupania) was mapped out, but little significant development occurred until the early 1990s. Pimpama Rivers estate in the south dates from the mid-1990s, and the elevated Ormeau Hills estate came later in the decade. Elsewhere there are rural/residential subdivisions, and considerable un-subdivided land remained in the early 2000s. Local shopping centres are in the north (Pascoe Road, Norfolk Village) and slightly south of the centre at Peachey Road/ Vaughan Drive. Each has a supermarket. There is a linear industrial area between the Pacific Highway and the railway line.

Ormeau primary school was transferred to the south of the Pimpama River, placing it out of Ormeau, and a private Livingstone College was opened in 2002. Local golf is also found the other side of Pimpama River, along with Ormeau railway station (1996) on the express line from Brisbane to Gold Coast.

Ormeau's census populations have been:

*Excluding Ormeau Hills