Cairns is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the 2021 census, Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after Sir William Wellington Cairns, following the discovery of gold in the Hodgkinson River. During World War II, the city became a staging ground for the Allied Forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea.