Bundjalung Country map
Where Bundjalung Country runs, why no single map is official, and who holds the boundaries.
Richmond River
Lismore
Lismore is the closest thing Bundjalung Country has to a regional capital — a Richmond River city built around a university, a market economy, and, in recent years, a hard road back from flood.
About Lismore
Lismore and its immediate suburbs — Goonellabah, East Lismore, South Lismore, North Lismore, and Girards Hill — together made up around 27,900 people at the 2021 Census (ABS Urban Centre and Locality figure), with Goonellabah alone accounting for over 13,000 of that. It is the largest city inland of the coast anywhere on the NSW far north coast, and home to the main campus of Southern Cross University.
Lismore sits low in the Wilsons River (Richmond River) floodplain, which has always meant periodic flooding — but the flood of February–March 2022 was catastrophic, well beyond any previous record, and reshaped the city. The university campus became an evacuation centre and later a base for dozens of recovery organisations; rebuilding, buyback schemes, and flood-resilient design are still very much part of daily conversation in Lismore years on.
Lismore is Bundjalung Country, centred on the traditional lands of the Widjabul Wia-bal people. On 19 December 2022 the Federal Court made a consent determination recognising Widjabul Wia-bal non-exclusive native title over about 11,700 hectares of Crown land around Lismore (Widjabul Wia-bal v Attorney-General of New South Wales (Section 87 Agreement) [2022] FCA 1521). For matters of language, cultural protocol, or country and family connections, local bodies such as the Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council and native title representatives are the right contact — not this website. The wider area has long been known informally as the "Rainbow Region" for the alternative and arts communities that settled through the Northern Rivers hinterland from the 1970s onward.
Local history
Lismore’s First Peoples is Lismore City Council’s local-history overview.
Keep learning about Bundjalung Country
Clans and groups
Arakwal, Githabul, Bandjalang, Widjabal, Nyangbal, Yugambeh and the other names you will meet.
Bundjalung language
Dialects, why spellings differ, and the language centres that actually teach and publish.
Place names
Which Northern Rivers town names come from Bundjalung language, and which came from Britain.
Bundjalung National Park
The coastal park between Iluka and Evans Head, its campgrounds, and the Iluka rainforest.
History: reserves and land rights
The Protection Board years, the reserves and stations, and where to look for family records.
Parks, sacred places and walks
Jointly managed parks, places custodians ask you to treat with care, and Aboriginal-led walks.
Also on this site
Community email and web hosting
Email for Lismore
A name@bundjalung.au address gives Lismore and Goonellabah residents, students, and small organisations a stable contact point that doesn't depend on any one employer, landlord, or ISP.
A free static site
Community groups, flood-recovery projects, artists, and small Lismore businesses can get a simple static page live under name.bundjalung.au at no cost once identity checks are complete.
Bundjalung artists, makers, and business owners in Lismore: this page doesn't publish a directory of local people or businesses without their say-so. If you're a Bundjalung artist, maker, or business owner based in or around Lismore or Goonellabah and would like a page, portfolio link, or listing here — with a link back to your own site or socials — use the contact form below or email info@bundjalung.au and mention Lismore. Nothing about you goes on this page unless you ask for it.