The Turrbal are an Aboriginal Australian people from the area now known as Brisbane. The boundaries of their traditional territory are unclear and linguists are divided over whether they spoke a separate language or a dialect of the Yuggera language. ^{[1] [2]} The Turrbal/Yuggera word for the central Brisbane area is Meanjin ^[3] (sometimes spelt Meeanjin or Mianjin).

Connors, however, states that the Yaggera (Yuggera) language group spread south of the Brisbane River from the Brisbane River Valley to the present South Bank almost to Morton Bay. ^[4]

Meanjin (also Meeanjin, Mianjin) is a Turrbal/Yuggera word meaning "spike place" or "tulip wood". It was used for the area now covered by Gardens Point and the Brisbane central business district. ^{[5] [6]} The Turrbal called the early Brisbane settlement "Umpi Korrumba" meaning "many houses". ^[7]

The Turrbal people's traditional lands lay around the Brisbane River. Tom Petrie stated that their land coincided with the territorial range of their language. ^[8] Ford and Blake, however, state that the Turrbal and Jagera were distinct peoples, the Jagera generally living south of the Brisbane river and the Turrbal mostly living north. ^[9] Neighbouring Aboriginal peoples include the Gubbi Gubbi and Wakka Wakka to the north, the Dalla to the northwest and the Quandamooka of Moreton Bay. ^[10]

At the time of European settlement, the Turrbul people comprised local groups each of which had a "head man" and a specific territory. ^[11] The European names for the locality groups, sometimes called clans, of the Brisbane area include the Duke of York's clan, the North Pine (or Petrie), the Coorpooroo, Chepara, Yerongpan and others. ^{[12] [13]}

Despite collective title to a stretch of land, the Turrbal permitted private ownership of specific sections of land. Petrie states:

Though the land belonged to the whole tribe, the head men often spoke of it as theirs. The tribe in general owned the animals and birds on the ground, also roots and nests, but certain men and women owned different fruit or flower-trees and shrubs. For instance, a man could own a bonyi ( Araucaria bidwilli) tree, and a woman a minti ( Banksia amula), dulandella ( Persoonia Sp.), midyim ( Myrtus tenuifolia), or dakkabin ( Xanthorrhoea aborea) tree. Then a man sometimes owned a portion of the river which was a good fishing spot, and no one else could fish there without his permission. ^[14]