Cotton Tree Caravan Park, Heritage camping site in Sunshine Coast, Australia

Cotton Tree Caravan Park is a coastal holiday facility on the Sunshine Coast that spans eight hectares between Maroochy River and Maroochydore Beach. The grounds offer powered and unpowered caravan sites, deluxe villas, beach houses, barbecue facilities, and laundry amenities for all guests.

The site was established in 1873 as a camping reserve beneath native cotton trees, and gained prominence when the Salvation Army began holding annual Christmas camps there from 1896 onward. This extended association with organized group travel shaped the park's development and purpose over many years.

The name comes from the native cotton trees (Hibiscus tiliaceus) that campers pitched tents among on the reserve. From 1896 the Salvation Army ran a yearly "Maroochy Heads encampment" between Christmas and New Year, banning alcohol, gambling and dancing, and serving meals in a dining tent with a kiosk selling bread, soft drinks, lollies and fruit. The last reported encampment was held in 1929, with 100 tents on the reserve.

The park sits on the southern bank of the Maroochy River mouth, with the surf beach immediately to the south; a life saving reel was installed there in 1908. Until the late 1920s most visitors arrived by motor launch at the Cotton Tree jetty, via Nambour railway station and the Moreton Mill tramway. The Nambour road was begun in 1922 and upgraded to a Main Road by 1927.

The 1873 gazette of a 215-acre Wharf and Water reserve here was later reduced: in September 1916 only seventeen tidal acres were re-gazetted for Camping and Recreation, the portion not auctioned under perpetual lease from December 1915. Campers had protested the sales, with over 500 objecting in the Salvation Army marquee on Boxing Day 1914.