Mermaid Waters, immediately west of Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast, is a residential suburb consisting almost entirely of canal estates and associated lakes.
Before the creation of the canal estates the land behind Mermaid Beach was flat grazing space interspersed with swamps that drained into the Little Tallebudgera Creek. The creek was joined by a drain from further inland, meeting each other near Jupiters Casino. An approximate alignment of the drain runs through Mermaid Waters' Lakes Wonderland and Intrepid.
Mermaid Waters is a suburb of the 1970s-80s, and was formally named in 1981. It began with the estates immediately south of Pacific Fair shopping centre, with the section west of Sunshine Boulevard being completed by 1990. The north-west part next to Merrimac high school (1979) includes the Q Super Centre, and remained the last area to be developed. Q Super Centre also serves the shopping needs of Clear Island Waters, a suburb of the 1990s.
Mermaid Waters is mostly dwellings and canals. Community infrastructure borders it: Pacific Fair shopping centre and the Waterways community centre with a library and a council branch office, Broadbeach and Miami primary schools (1960, 1979) and the Burleigh golf course.
In 2001 the census data combined Mermaid Waters with its newer neighbour, Clear Island Waters. Together, they had more single person households and fewer families with children than Gold Coast as a whole. Their residents' median age was 41 years compared with 38 for Gold Coast.
Mermaid Waters-'Clear Island Waters' census populations have been:
Census Date | Population | |
---|---|---|
Mermaid Waters – Clear Island Waters | 1986 | 9004 |
1996 | 9793 | |
2001 | 13,509 | |
2006 | 13,828 | |
2011 | 15,776 | |
Mermaid Waters | 2006 | 11,648 |
2011 | 11,789 |