Mackay () is a city in the Mackay Region on the eastern or Coral Sea coast of Queensland, Australia. It is located about north of Brisbane, on the Pioneer River. Mackay is described as being in either Central Queensland or North Queensland, as these regions are not precisely defined. More generally, the area is known as the Mackay–Whitsunday Region. Nicknames of Mackay include the Sugar capital and Macktown. Founded in 1862 by British colonists as Alexandra, in honour of Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the city was later renamed after John Mackay. Sugarcane plantations became the economic foundations of the city, with the first being the Alexandra plantation established in 1867. These plantations used South Sea Islanders that had been blackbirded as indentured labourers or slaves. The trades ending in 1904 roughly coincided with the immigration of Mediterranean migrants from Italy and Malta beginning in 1891 to work the sugarcane plantations, and by the 1930s one third of Australia’s Italian migrants lived in North Queensland. The city was nearly destroyed in the 1918 cyclone, and the following reconstruction used primarily Art Deco and Spanish Mission architectural styles for which the city is famous. Name The city was named after the slave trader John Mackay. In 1860, he was the leader of an expedition into the Pioneer Valley. Initially Mackay proposed to name the river Mackay River after his father George Mackay. Thomas Henry Fitzgerald surveyed the township and proposed it was called Alexandra after Princess Alexandra of Denmark, who married Prince Edward (later King Edward VII). However, in 1862 the river was renamed to be the Pioneer River, after in which Queensland Governor George Bowen travelled to the area, and the township name was changed to be Mackay in honour of John Mackay. Fitzgerald then decided to use the name Alexandra for his sugar cane plantation and sugar mill, which eventually provided the name to the Mackay suburb of Alexandra today. There has always been much contention over the pronunciation of the name Mackay. Correspondence received by Mackay City Library in 2007, from descendants of John Mackay, confirms that the correct pronunciation is , from the Gaelic name "MacAoidh" which is pronounced "ɑɪ" not "eɪ". History The area which is now Mackay City was originally inhabited by the local Yuibera people. Yuwibara (also known as Yuibera, Yuri, Juipera, Yuwiburra) is an Australian Indigenous language spoken on Yuwibara country. It is closely