Buranda, a former suburb that is now a locality in Woolloongabba, is 3 km south of central Brisbane. When recognised as a suburb, Buranda extended from Broadway/Deshon Streets to Cornwall Street (north to south) and from the back of the former Brisbane gaol to Norman Creek. It included the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Association and the Diamantina (Princess Alexandra) hospital. Originally known as Logan Road, the locality was named Buranda in 1921, four years after the railway station was given that name. The name is thought to have been derived from an Aboriginal word referring to wind or a windy place, possibly a reference to wind from the Norman Creek.
The Ipswich and Logan Roads run through Buranda, each of them being busy thoroughfares from outlying farms to Brisbane in the 1870s. The Buranda post office was opened in 1885, after which came a horse tram in Logan Road to Maynard Street (1887) and the Norman Hotel in Ipswich Road (1889). By the end of the 1890s Buranda had three public transport services: the Cleveland railway line which had a station named Logan Road (1889), now Buranda, an electric tram in Ipswich Road to beyond the Diamantina orphanage (1897) and an electric tram in Logan Road to Stones Corner. An unusual 'first' was the Seventh Day Adventist church (1899) in Toohey Street, near the railway station, constructed just three years after the Adventists' first church building in Australia. Later there were Baptist and Latter Day Saints churches in O'Keefe Street and a Catholic church in Taylor Street.
Buranda families had the choice of East Brisbane or Dutton Park primary schools, each outside their district. In 1918 the Buranda primary school was opened, in the west of the suburb near Norman Creek and Stones Corner. The year before the Logan Road railway station's name had been changed to Buranda, the first official use of the new name.
Families also had the option of shopping in Ipswich Road in the vicinity of the Norman Hotel, where there were a tram line and the Albert railway station on a short line from Dutton Park to the Stanley Street wharves; or they could go to the Logan Road approach to Stones Corner where there was the Renown Cinema near the Maynard Street tram stop. From the 1890s there was considerable local industry, including a cannery, a furniture maker and an engineering works.
Buses replaced the trams in 1961, and the tram depot at the corner of Ipswich Road and Cornwall Street became a bus depot. In 1978 it was redeveloped as Buranda Plaza (discount department store, supermarket and 14 shops), but any injury to Stones Corner hardly mattered, as the South Eastern Freeway cut Buranda and the shopping centres' catchments in half. Shortly afterwards Buranda was made a locality in Woolloongabba, signifying a decline in its importance as a place name. Decline was also evident in the primary school's enrolment, touching 50 in the 1990s. The decline was arrested by an innovative curriculum, making philosophical enquiry a core subject. By 2004 the school had 175 pupils from 30 suburbs.
The Buranda station building was destroyed by fire in 2009, and temporary arrangements put in place.
Buranda has no current census figures.
