Murwillumbah ( ) is a town in far north-eastern New South Wales, Australia, in the Tweed Shire, on the Tweed River. Sitting on the south eastern foothills of the McPherson Range in the Tweed Volcano valley, Murwillumbah is 848 km north-east of Sydney, 13 km south of the Queensland border and 132 km south of Brisbane. The town's name is often abbreviated to M'bah or Murbah. At the 2016 census, Murwillumbah had a population of 9,245. Many of the buildings are Art Deco in style and there are cafes, clothes shops and antique shops in the town. History The first people to live in the area were Kalibai people. The name Murwillumbah may derive from an Aboriginal compound meaning either "camping place" – from murrie, meaning "aboriginal people", wolli, "a camp", and bah, "place" – or alternatively from murra, "big", willum, "possum", and bah. Nearby Mount Warning and its attendant national park are known as Wollumbin, meaning "Cloud Catcher", in the Bundjalung language. Timber-getters were drawn to the region in the 1840s. The river port at Tumbulgum was initially the main settlement. In 1902, a local government municipality was declared with Murwillumbah as its centre. Most of the town's business district was destroyed by fire in 1907. In 1918 an initial 18 allotments were advertised for sale in the Hartigan Estate and a subsequent 200 allotments were advertised for sale in September 1920. The land was bounded by the Tweed River and Commercial Road on the east, Condong Street on the north, Riverview Street on the west and Elizabeth Street to the south. The subdivision was sold as part of the estate of Denis Hartigan. In December 1923, "Bray Estate" made up of 9 farm and farmlet blocks was advertised to be auctioned by A. E. Budd & Son. Murwillumbah was the location of Australia's largest-ever bank robbery, when A$1.7 million in cash was stolen from the vault of the Bank of New South Wales by the 'Magnetic drill gang' in 1978. The case remains unsolved. Floods Murwillumbah is protected by a series of levees, but they do not protect all parts of the town in major floods. The worst inundation, exceeding those of 1954, 1956, 1974, 2008 and 2009, started on 30 March 2017. The Tweed River reached after rainfall of over from the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Debbie fell in its upper catchment over a 36 hour period.