Jacobs Well, a small town on Moreton Bay opposite Kangaroo Island, is 48 km south-east of central Brisbane. The origin of the name is obscure, possibly from the Biblical Jacob or the son of a pioneer, Johann Gross, who settled in the Pimpama district.

Jacobs Well is in the Woongoolba district, which is predominately sugar-growing. The Rocky Point sugar mill (1879) is near Woongoolba, which has the district's primary school.

The main rural industry in Jacobs Well is fishing, much of it recreational. Waterways are natural rather than artifical, although developers have found wetlands with potential to accommodate canal estates. Until then, Jacobs Well remained a boaties' village with unmanicured landscape. An emerging canal estate (2008) has a marina and a proposed golf course.

Most houses are over 20 years old and dependent on tank water. Several small estates were added in the 1990s, but not with enough additional population of the right age to revive the school which closed in 1974. There are a hall, an Apostolic Church, sports and camping reserves and a jetty. The cemetery and the Gem Hotel are out of town, as is the Jacobs Well Nature Reserve, a coastal wetland about 3 km north. The Pimpama Wetland Reserve is in the south of Jacobs Well.

Jacobs Well's census populations have been:

Census DatePopulation
192129
195481
1991397
1996659
2001798
20061201
20111546
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