The Brisbane River combined with other features of the natural environment to determine the shape of the city and the suburbs to follow. On the north-east, the Taylor Range provided a natural boundary and to the south Pine Mountain, Whites Hill, Tooheys Mountain, and Mount Gravatt defined the southern and south-eastern reaches of the city. The swampy land to the north was difficult to cross. Much of it was eventually drained to form the Brisbane Airport, leaving the Boondall Wetlands as a reminder of the former landscape.

The hills and ridges closer to the city were often developed first by wealthy landowners seeking the cooling breezes and views that they offered. This linked with nineteenth-century ideas about the health benefits obtained from being elevated from low-lying wetlands and the unhealthy air coming from them. The extensive ridges were not the exclusive abode of the rich, as worker cottages were spread equally between them and the hollows and flats.

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