Eastern Queensland (Australia) was struck by a major earthquake at ≈04:14 a.m. local time on 7 June 1918. Most previous studies have suggested that the epicenter of this earthquake lies off the coast of Bundaberg, between the port cities of Gladstone and Rockhampton. This epicentral location was based upon instrumental observations from the Riverview College observatory in Sydney. However, this epicenter lies ≈250 km to the northeast of an inland region that experienced both the strongest shaking effects and numerous felt aftershocks. We revisited available macroseismic data from 224 geographic locations and surviving instrumental observations for the 1918 Queensland earthquake to show that the most likely epicentral location was inland at ≈24.93° S and ≈150.88° E in the Banana Shire and North Burnett region. The re‐estimated instrumental magnitude of <i>M</i>_w6.0 ± 0.3 (1<i>&sigma;</i>) makes it one of the largest onshore earthquakes in eastern Australia in the past century. Our observations also offer support for a viewpoint proposed in 1935 by an eminent Queensland geologist, Walter Heywood Bryan, that the 1918 earthquake was inland. Our study highlights the benefit of the critical evaluation of primary source materials, both archival and seismological, to study historical earthquakes in Australia that are relevant for modern seismic hazard analysis. <b>Citation:</b> Stacey S. Martin, Phil R. Cummins, Jonathan D. Griffin, Dan Clark, Trevor I. Allen; Resolving the Location and Magnitude of the 1918 Queensland (Bundaberg), Australia, Earthquake. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 2024;; 114 (6): 3202–3223. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120240029

A robust record of earthquake activity in any given region is vital to identify regions of elevated seismogenic potential, define seismogenic sources and to help forecast future rates of seismicity. Records of earthquakes predating instrumentation and those occurring while instrumentation was still in its infancy might be used to augment the relatively short duration of the instrumental era in Australia. The events occurring during these seismological eras are often termed “historical earthquakes”, and their study forms a valuable input for seismic hazard assessment. However, as with any scientific data, documentary evidence extracted from newspapers and other written materials is subject to uncertainties, incompleteness, and errors being repeated from a lack of a thorough modern re-examination of the available data. With application to seismic hazard in Australia, we revisit original sources to re-evaluate selected historical earthquakes such as the 1918 Queensland (QLD) and the 1954 Adelaide (SA) earthquakes. We discuss biases that impact the analyses of these and other historical earthquakes in Australia. Our study highlights the benefit of the critical evaluation of primary source materials to homogenise both archival and seismological materials, with modern observations, to improve our understanding of historical earthquakes in Australia. This will in turn will benefit future assessments of modern seismic hazard. Presented at the 2023 Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) National Conference