South Australiastate of south-central Australia, occupying . It occupies one of the dryestdriest, most barren parts of the continent, but its southern fringe consists of well-watered and fertile lands and is where most of the population is located. It is bounded by Western Australia on to the west, Northern Territory on to the north, Queensland on to the north and east, and New South Wales and Victoria on to the east. On To the south it fronts the Great Australian Bight, a marginal sea of the Antarctica Oceansouthern Indian Ocean (called the Southern Ocean in Australia). The capital is Adelaide, on the southern coast.

Occupying about one-eighth of Australia’s total land area, it South Australia is fourth in size among the nation’s country’s eight states and territories. Its people make up less than 10 8 percent of the Australian population, ranking fifth among the populations of the states and territories.

Although isolation and its distinctive British origins as an experiment in planned settlement have produced a sense of local pride and identity, South Australia’s commercial links are strongest with Melbourne and Sydney. The settled parts of the state South Australia form the western end of a crescent of closely settled and productive land in southeastern Australia that is the economic heartland of the nation. country. The state’s commercial links are strongest with Melbourne and Sydney. Area 379,900 725 square miles (984983,000 482 square km). Pop. (1996) 1,427,936; (2001) 1,467,261; (2005 est.2006) 1,540514,413.

Physical and human geographyThe land



South Australia is a land of vast plains, low uplands, and extensive salt- or clay-encrusted lake beds that rarely contain water. More than 80 percent four-fifths of the state is less than 1,000 feet (300 metres) above sea level. The highest point in the state, Mount Woodroffe, in the Musgrave Range Ranges of the northwest interior, is rises to only 4,708 feet (1,435 metres).

The generally smooth southeasterly trend of the coastline is interrupted by the major indentations , of Spencer Gulf and Gulf St. Vincent, which extend inland some 200 and 100 miles (320 and 160 km), respectively. These shallow gulfs extend maritime climatic influences inland and were important corridors for local transport during the first century of European settlement. Kangaroo Island, which has an area of some about 1,679 680 square miles (4,350 square km), lies south of Gulf St. Vincent.

Most of the interior is arid. The highest rainfall, which occurs mainly in the winter half of the year, falls on the southern coastal lands and on the north-south-trending hills and ranges adjacent to the gulfs.


state can be divided into seven major regions on the basis of surface landforms. The four westernmost regions are part of a vast and geologically stable shield of ancient Precambrian rocks (at least 540 million years old). In the far northwest are the Musgrave and Everard ranges, composed of granite and gneiss and forming bald


rounded hills or rugged hilly terrain. In the far west the Great Victoria Desert extends into Western Australia, consisting of west-east-trending sand dunes. Southward this region adjoins the eastern portion of the Nullarbor Plain, a flat limestone plateau dotted with sinkholes and underlain by very long caves that contain some of the oldest dated evidence of humans in Australia. This plain meets the

Southern Ocean


Precambrian Shield


The south-central part of the state—the gulfs and adjacent ranges and plains—was the region most attractive to European settlement because of its higher


precipitation and more diverse and productive soils. The main feature is an arc of sedimentary rocks, predominantly of sandstone and quartzite, extending from Kangaroo Island through the Mount Lofty


Range to the Flinders Ranges. These rocks have been


folded and faulted repeatedly,


creating a sequence of narrow ranges, intervening or flanking valleys, and small plains of alluvium.

The sixth region is the Murray


Plain and the Southeast Plain, developed on


lime-rich deposits from early Cenozoic time (roughly 50 million years ago). The Murray Plain is characterized by west-east-trending stabilized sand dunes. In the wetter Southeast Plain there are parallel limestone ridges with flats, formerly inundated in winter but now drained for farming. Near the town of Mount Gambier, several prominent volcanic cones and craters mark eruptions that occurred some 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

The final region


encompasses the deserts of the north and northeast, consisting of stony or sand dune deserts, low tablelands, and vast dry lakes. Lake Eyre, the largest of these,

is some 52 feet

only rarely fills completely with water; it lies some 50 feet (15 metres) below sea level

and has flooded only three times in the past century.Drainage and water supplies

, the lowest point on the continent.


South Australia is notably deficient in rivers. The Murray River is the only large permanent


stream, and, before its flow was regulated by barrages and upstream dams, even this dried to a series of saline pools


during severe droughts. Seasonally flowing streams from the Mount Lofty Ranges have been dammed to provide metropolitan Adelaide with

about 60 percent

more than half of its water needs, the balance being met by two pipelines constructed over the ranges from the Murray River in 1954 and 1973, respectively. Almost the entire flow of the Murray arises from precipitation in Victoria, New South Wales, and, to a lesser extent, Queensland. In addition to supplementing the water supply of metropolitan Adelaide, pipelines from the Murray River service the industrial towns at the head of Spencer Gulf and provide domestic and livestock needs for a wide area of farmland.

Approximately 90 percent

The great bulk of the South Australian population depends wholly or partly on reticulated (piped) water from the Murray. It is also the major source of irrigation water for agriculture. With supplies of water from the Murray becoming increasingly unreliable at the turn of the 21st century, the South Australian government began planning for the installation of desalinization facilities.

Groundwater accounts for some

35 percent

one-third of the total water used in the state. Two-thirds of this amount is utilized on farmlands, mainly in the extreme southeast, where large yields of low-salinity water are derived from the cavernous limestone and sand dune aquifers. The Great Artesian Basin extends into the arid northeastern quarter of the state, and deep wells tapping this source have been vital in maintaining pastoral farming and,

in recent times

since the late 20th century, the large mining development at Olympic Dam.


South Australia is the driest of the Australian states. Only

18 percent

about one-fifth of the area receives


annual precipitation of more than 10 inches (250


mm), and

only 8 percent

less than half of that has more than 16 inches (400 mm). The higher rainfall occurs along the southern coasts and the north-south-trending Mount


Lofty and Flinders ranges. The highest falls occur near Mount Lofty (47 inches [1,200 mm]), and the lowest occur in the vicinity of Lake Eyre (6 inches [150 mm] or less).


With maritime climatic influences drawn inland by Spencer Gulf and Gulf St. Vincent, the southern coastal zone of the state has been characterized as having a “Mediterranean”

climatic type

climate, with mild






wet winters and hot


dry summers. By contrast, rainfall in the arid interior is


highly erratic. The two dominant weather influences derive from the Southern Ocean to the south and from the continental interior to the north. These can produce sharp temperature contrasts at any time of the year, most markedly in summer, when scorching northerly winds can give way within hours to cool southerlies off the ocean.

In Adelaide the average daily maximum temperatures range from a summer peak of

86° F (30° C

84 °F (29 °C) in January to a winter low of

59° F (15° C

59 °F (15 °C) in July; average daily minimum temperatures range from

63° F (17° C

63 °F (17 °C) in February to

a low of 45° F (7° C

45 °F (7 °C) in July. In the southern settled coastal zone the annual average number of “hot” days in excess of

86° F

86 °F is from 10 to 50, whereas in the northern two-thirds of the state it is more than 110 days per year.

South Australia is relatively free of damaging weather events, apart from droughts. Violent storms are rare and flood hazards minimal. Summer bushfires are the most serious weather-related hazards;


notable widespread and destructive fires occurred in January 1939 and February 1983.


Sand and lime are the dominant features of the soils of the state’s extensive plains, whereas well-developed loam and clay soils are of


limited extent. In their natural state most soils are deficient in essential plant nutrients and tend to have hard-setting surfaces that seal readily under raindrops, leading to erosion of bare ground in heavy storms. A century of experiment with fertilizers and pasture management has solved many of the nutrient limitations of soils in the regions of better rainfall. The most important soils agriculturally have been the hard


red duplex soils of the lands near the gulfs.

Plant and animal life

Vegetation in the vast arid areas ranges from low woodlands of


acacia species, cypress pines (Callitris), and beefwood (Casuarina), through shrub savannas dominated by


acacia, to low

shrub lands

shrublands of bluebush (Maireana and Chenopodium) and saltbush (Atriplex) that


provide the basis

of the

for inland sheep


and cattle




. The stony and sandy deserts support a sparse growth of hummock grasslands of

Triodia (porcupine grass

porcupine (also called spinifex) grass (Triodia).

Before European settlement the southern regions, with higher rainfall and a more temperate climate, supported three principal

plant formations

ecosystems. Dry sclerophyll forest, dominated by rough-barked species of


eucalyptus, occurred in areas receiving 30 inches (750 mm) of rain or more. Mallee vegetation, a tall open scrub of multistemmed eucalypts, occurred inland in areas with rainfall between about 12 and 20 inches (305 and 510 mm). In the intermediate rainfall zone was an open grassy savanna with smooth-barked eucalypts; this was the area that attracted the first European settlers.


In more recent times, extensive managed forests, principally of pine (Pinus radiata),

have been

were established by the state government and by private companies on former


scrubland and

heath land

heathland in the



South Australia shares many animal, bird, and reptile species with adjacent parts of Australia. Widespread clearing of vegetation for agriculture and the competition of domesticated livestock in the arid pastoral zone have depleted


numbers of most wild fauna, especially mammals.

More than a quarter of the 50 or so species of marsupials

However, the echidna (spiny anteater), an unusual egg-laying mammal, is still seen regularly on the South Australian mainland and on Kangaroo Island. More than one-fourth of the some 50 species of marsupials originally native to the state are now extinct, but others are still common, including


western gray






kangaroos, and





South Australia


The state has about 400 of the 700

Hundreds of species of




(including more than

100 species of reptiles.
Settlement patterns

South Australia has a closely settled core, surrounded by an area of diminishing population density and economic productivity. The heart of the state is metropolitan Adelaide. It has more than two-thirds of the state’s total population, the largest proportion for any Australian state capital. Near Adelaide the land is intensively farmed for dairying, fruit, and vegetables and includes the well-known wine-producing regions of the Barossa Valley and the Southern Vales. Beyond this zone are the intensive sheep- and cattle-rearing districts of the South-East and the wheat-barley and sheep-farming districts of the Murray Mallee, the Mid North, and the Yorke and Eyre peninsulas. Beyond the edge of the cultivated land, sheep grazing occurs on native pastures and shrubs. Most remote of all are the extensive cattle-raising properties of the northern arid zone.

Apart from the Adelaide there are some 50 cities and towns of more than 1,000 people, accounting for about 16 percent of the total population. The largest cities are Whyalla, Mount Gambier, Port Augusta, and Port Pirie. About 15 percent of the population is classified as rural.

The people

20 introduced species) inhabit or visit South Australia. The state is also home to more than 200 species of reptiles and amphibians. The gibber dragon (Ctenophorus gibba), a type of lizard, and the Woomera slider (Lerista elongata), a variety of skink, are among several species of reptiles that are endemic to the state. Common amphibians include the brown tree frog, the spotted grass frog, and the eastern banjo toad.

Population composition

In common with the other Australian states and territories, the ethnic composition of South Australia’s population has changed markedly since World War II. Before the war the state’s population was predominantly Anglo-Celtic in origin, most of the people in the state traced their ancestry to Britain; the state now has since become a more diverse, multicultural society.

In 1986, 22 percent the early 21st century, some one-fifth of South Australians were born overseas, and an additional 20 percent had at least one parent born overseas. The state’s population growth rate has exceeded that of Australia as a whole during only two periods. The first, from 1861 to 1881, was an era of rapid wheat-farming expansion and copper-mine development. The second, from 1947 to 1966, saw a rapid growth of manufacturing industry, was a time when manufacturing grew rapidly and was associated with a program of European immigration fostered by federal and state governments. This brought large numbers of non-English-speaking immigrants from Italy, Greece, areas of the Soviet bloc in eastern Europe, and the Baltic states, Germany, and The Netherlands, in addition to a substantial British inflow. Since the 1970s the last quarter of the 20th century the net gains from immigration have been smaller and have been composed largely of immigrants from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Vietnam, and other European and Southeast Asian countries.Compared with the other Australian states

Settlement patterns and demographic trends

South Australia has a closely settled core surrounded by an area of diminishing population density and decreasing economic productivity. The heart of the state, metropolitan Adelaide, is home to some three-fourths of the state’s total population. With ongoing rural-to-urban migration, the city continues to expand.

Near Adelaide the land is used intensively for dairy, fruit, and vegetable farming, and the area includes the well-known wine-producing regions of the Barossa Valley and the Southern Vales. Beyond this zone are the intensive sheep- and cattle-raising districts of the southeast and the wheat-, barley-, and sheep-farming districts in the Murray River and north-central areas and on the Yorke and Eyre peninsulas. Beyond the edge of the cultivated land, sheep grazing occurs on native pastures and shrubs. Most remote of all are the extensive cattle-raising properties of the northern arid zone.

Outside of the greater Adelaide area, there are some 60 cities and towns of more than 1,000 people. The largest cities are Mount Gambier, Whyalla, Port Augusta, and Port Pirie. Roughly one-tenth of the population is classified as rural.

Compared with the rest of Australia, the census profile shows that the South Australian population generally has fewer children under 5 15 years of age but more adults over 65 years, a higher slightly lower percentage of persons born overseas, fewer Roman Catholics and Anglicans, more than three times the Australian average of Lutherans, a smaller share of households in the top income brackets, and generally a slightly higher level of unemployment. For more than a century, South Australian women have had fewer children than women in any other statestates, but and the average life expectancy is greater than the national average. In the late 1980s and early 1990s South Australia had the second lowest population growth rate of the states after Tasmania.The Aboriginal population makes up a little more than 1 has continued to rise. These factors, combined with persistent out-migration and low levels of immigration, have held South Australia’s population growth in check; since the late 1980s the state’s growth rate has remained among the lowest in the country.

The Aboriginal population is small, constituting less than 2 percent of the state’s total population. Some 40 percent ; roughly half of the state’s Aboriginal people live in Adelaide and about 20 percent community resides in the Adelaide vicinity, and much of the remainder lives in the remote northwest, where title rights to traditional lands were first granted in 1981. Compared with the state population in general, the Aboriginal population has a high proportion of children, a high birth rate, a high death rate, low income and occupational and educational status, and nine times the average percentage of persons in prisons and corrective institutions.

The economy

Access to quality health care, secure employment, adequate education, and other social services has remained a challenge for the Aboriginal population.


South Australia shares many features of the Australian economy in general—notably an agricultural and mining base oriented strongly toward export markets, and a manufacturing superstructure concerned mainly with the home market and dependent to a considerable degree on the assistance of tariffs on imported goods. Estimates of the value of goods produced in the

late 1980s

early 21st century showed that

28 percent

more than half of the state’s total

were the products of farms, 14 percent the products of

income came from manufacturing, and roughly one-fourth was from farming. Most of the remainder was derived from mines, quarries, and natural gas fields,

57 percent were manufactured products, and 1.4 percent

and a small fraction came from fisheries.

Less than 10 percent

A small portion of the

work force is

workforce was employed in the primary


activities of farming, forestry, fishing, and mining;

less than 20 percent are

a slightly larger segment—some one-tenth—was in manufacturing; and the

remainder are

rest of the labour force was in construction, sales, education, finance, administration, and community and personal services.

Agriculture and forestry

Wheat growing for export has long been a mainstay of South Australian farming, and up to about one-seventh of Australian production of wheat comes from the state. Barley is a crop of more recent importance, and the state produces about one-fourth of the national crop. Livestock production ranges from extensive “open range” cattle rearing in the northern deserts to intensive pig and poultry raising near Adelaide. South Australia’s sheep make up about one-tenth of the Australian total, and its dairy cattle make up about half that proportion.

Intensive production of grapes, vegetables, and orchard fruit (especially oranges), normally grown under irrigation, involves some one-fifth of all farm holdings. Fruits and vegetables are grown in districts of varying soil quality and climate, ranging from the hot-summer irrigation districts along the Murray River through the rain-fed Barossa and Clare valleys to the cool-climate districts of the Mount Lofty Range and the southeast. Grapes alone constitute some one-sixth of the value of the state’s primary farm commodities. More than two-fifths of Australia’s vineyard area is located in South Australia.

Australia’s largest grouping of managed softwood plantations, largely Pinus radiata, is in the southeast of the state and supports Australia’s most important concentration of wood-processing industries.

Resources and power

The Australian mining industry began with small-scale extraction of lead


and silver


in the hills near Adelaide in 1841. This was followed by large copper discoveries at Kapunda, Burra, Moonta, and Kadina between 1842 and 1861.


In the 1970s one of the world’s largest deposits of copper-gold-uranium mineralization ever found was identified in the desert at Olympic Dam, west of Lake Torrens

. Commercial

, and commercial mining began in 1988

and when fully developed will support a town of 3,000 people

. Mining operations in copper, iron, and uranium expanded rapidly in the following two decades. The South Australian government provided enthusiastic support for large-scale mineral exploration and exploitation in the north and west of the state. In addition, advances in technology have facilitated the mining of deep and extensive mineral deposits in central South Australia. Large reserves of high-grade iron ore were identified in 1890 in the Middleback


Range, west of Whyalla. From 1915 these ores were shipped to Newcastle and later to Port Kembla, both in New South Wales. Local production of pig iron began when the first blast furnace was opened at Whyalla in 1941, and construction of an integrated iron and steel plant began there in 1958.

Some 80 percent

Most of the world’s opals come from South Australia, from three fields in the central interior deserts at Coober Pedy, Mintabie, and Andamooka.


Much of Australia’s salt and gypsum comes from coastal sources in South Australia.

South Australia’s energy resources are remote from population centres. Coal


reserves, although substantial, are low-grade subbituminous and lignite deposits; impurities restrict their use. The long-known coal deposits at Leigh Creek have been worked by large-scale


opencut operations since 1954. Coal from Leigh Creek supplies electric power stations at Port Augusta. Natural gas (largely methane) has played a major role in the state’s energy supply since 1970. Extensive gas and


petroleum fields have been developed since


their first discovery in 1963 in desert lands of the Cooper Basin in the remote northeast. Gas pipelines to Adelaide and Sydney were completed in 1969 and 1976, respectively. The Torrens Island power station at Adelaide is the state’s largest electric power-generating unit and the first in Australia to use natural gas. Other major sources of electricity are the national electricity grid (linked through Victoria) and power stations at Port Augusta and Pelican Point. A

650-kilometre pipeline brings liquid petroleum gas (LPG; mostly propane and butane)

pipeline some 400 miles (650 km) long brings a mix of oil and gas from the interior to Port Bonython, near the head of Spencer Gulf, where

a recovery plant provides condensate for Australian and New Zealand markets and petroleum gas to Japan.
Agriculture and forestry

The mainstay of South Australian farming has long been wheat growing for export, and some 14 percent of Australian production of wheat comes from the state. Barley is a crop of more recent importance, and the state produces about 40 percent of the national crop. Livestock production ranges from extensive “open range” cattle rearing in the northern deserts to intensive pig and poultry rearing near Adelaide. South Australia’s sheep make up about 12 percent of the Australian total, and its dairy cattle more than 5 percent.

Intensive production of grapes, vegetables, and orchard fruit (especially oranges), normally grown under irrigation, amounts to about 15 percent of the value of the state’s farm produce and involves some 20 percent of all farm holdings. The wine grape crop amounts to about 60 percent of the Australian total. It is grown in districts of varying soil and climate, ranging from the hot summer irrigation districts along the Murray River through the rain-fed Barossa and Clare valleys to the cool-climate districts of the Mount Lofty Ranges and the southeast.

Australia’s largest grouping of managed softwood plantations, largely Pinus radiata, are in the southeast of the state and support Australia’s most important concentration of wood-processing industries.

the various hydrocarbons are processed; a considerable amount is converted to liquefied petroleum gas and is exported.


To a long-established base of primary processing industries there was added in the 1920s a motor vehicle assembly industry. A


manufacturing boom of the mid-20th century was based on the expansion of vehicle manufacture and of


production of larger household

“white goods”

durable goods such as refrigerators, washing machines, and stoves. Machinery and equipment have remained South Australia’s primary manufactures into the 21st century, followed by processed food and beverages and metal products. A soda ash plant near Port Adelaide is the main producer in the Australian alkali industry.

At Port Pirie, Broken Hill Associated Smelters Pty Ltd operates one

One of the world’s largest

silver-lead smelters, which accounts for some 5 to 10 percent of the world

multimetal smelters operates at Port Pirie, accounting for a significant portion of the world’s output of refined lead

. The Whyalla steel-making plant of Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited

and zinc. A large steel mill at Whyalla makes structural steel sections.


Passenger and freight transport services of all types centre on Adelaide, although substantial export cargoes of grain and minerals are sent directly overseas and interstate from the


state’s other significant outports. Port Adelaide is the dominant port for seaborne imports

together with nearby Port Stanvac, an oil-discharging terminal. The greater part of the

. Roads, most of which are paved, carry the bulk of the state’s passenger and general freight traffic. South Australia’s rail system is owned and operated

by the federal government’s Australian National Railways Commission. Services on most of the once extensive branch-line network have been discontinued, and the emphasis is

primarily by private companies, with an emphasis on long-haul mainline traffic to and from places outside the state. The State Transport Authority of South Australia operates


a suburban passenger rail system within metropolitan Adelaide

, which

that is integrated with


an extensive bus system and a


streetcar line. Australia’s most innovative public transport facility, the German-designed O-Bahn guided busway, provides high-speed access via the Torrens Valley to Adelaide’s outer northeastern suburbs.

Roads carry the greater part of the passenger and general freight traffic and are mostly paved (bitumen-sealed).

Administration and social conditionsGovernment

The main functions of state governments in Australia are primary and secondary education, hospitals, public housing, prisons and police, roads, water supply, and the administration of land resources, including land-use planning. Commonwealth government powers are predominant in defense, foreign affairs, trade and economic policy, immigration, welfare payments, shipping, and aviation. Through its capacity to make specific-purpose financial grants to the states, the Commonwealth has substantial de facto influence on many state functions, including high education, health, housing, and assistance to industry.

South Australia’s parliament

Adelaide Airport, one of Australia’s major commercial air hubs, provides international passenger and freight services. In addition, hundreds of regional airports and airstrips are scattered across the state, although only a handful of these have scheduled flights. Another few dozen offer irregular commercial charter services and provide emergency access to remote areas. The overwhelming majority of the state’s regional airports serve private interests.

Government and society
Constitutional framework



electoral districts, and a Legislative Council of 22

members for which the state is a single electorate




chamber. Alteration of the Constitution Act

, passed in 1855,



the Labor Party having formed the government for all but five years since 1965.In 1990 there were 121




The judicial system includes a Supreme Court, District Court, and Children’s Court, as well as local courts and courts of summary jurisdiction
Health and welfare




Compulsory education dates from 1875 and now applies to children from




years 1 through


7, and secondary classes are designated as




In the early 21st century, nongovernment schools accounted for

20 percent of the primary level enrollment in 1989 and for 27 percent of the

more than one-third of combined primary and secondary enrollment.

Postsecondary education is at two levels. The Department of


Higher education



Flinders University

of South Australia

opened in 1966 on the southern outskirts of Adelaide. The

state’s newest institution is the

University of South Australia


was formed in 1991

. It comprises


College in 1876—and


Health and welfare

The state government is responsible for providing the major health services for Aborigines, the aged, and the disabled; these include hospitals, mental health services, and drug and alcohol services. Policy is influenced by funding arrangements between the Commonwealth and state governments. In addition to public and private hospitals, there are community health services, services concerned with education and health promotion, and domiciliary care services. The School Dental Service provides for all children up to age 16.

; it is the state’s largest institution of higher learning.

Cultural life
The arts

The Art Gallery of South Australia

has representative


ceramic collections


for busking and


The Adelaide Festival, held in March every

second year

two years since 1960, is a major cultural event

, attracting nearly 800,000 attendances in 1988. It



been the site of world premieres of works commissioned specifically for the


event. The South Australian Film Corporation


(SAFC) produced many feature films for television and cinema

that have received critical acclaim in Australia and overseas. Various ethnic groups


vintage festivals.Recreation


Sports and recreation


in order

netball, golf, cricket, squash, and Australian


rules football. The main spectator sport is Australian


rules football, played during the autumn and winter, from


March to September. Year-round horse racing is popular.

A round of

Adelaide hosted the World Formula One Grand Prix

has been held in Adelaide each year since 1985; it is seen by some 120,000


Media and publishing


The period before British colonization

Human habitation in the The area that is now South Australia has ancient originsbeen inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years. Archaeological discoveries on the Nullarbor Plain in the west indicate forms of human life for a period dating from at least 23,000 years before the present, and Kangaroo Island witnessed settlement from at least have revealed that human life was already present in the region about 34,000 years ago and that Kangaroo Island has been home to human settlement for perhaps 16,000 years ago. Other locations in Australia possess much earlier evidence of habitation, which suggests that South Australia either was settled later or has received less intensive archaeological investigation. It is clear, however, that for thousands of years there were numerous centres of Aboriginal indigenous population, especially along the banks of the Murray River, and that substantial trade existed between these Aboriginal groups separated by vast distances, some extending across Central despite the vast distances that separated them. Some trade routes extended across central Australia as far north as Cape York in present-day Queensland. But the Aboriginal indigenous population was probably already in decline at the end of the 18th century. They The Aboriginal peoples had little resistance to introduced diseases such as smallpox that were transmitted down the Murray River system in advance of the arrival of European settlers on the southern coast.

European exploration of southern Australia was slow and intermittent. In 1627 the Dutch East India Company vessel Guilden Zeepaard, captained by Francois Thyssen, conveyed Pieter Nuyts as far east as Fowler’s Bay in the Great Australian Bight. His reports were unfavourable, and almost two centuries passed before further information reached Europe. The entire coast was finally charted by Matthew Flinders in the Investigator early in early 1802, a little before a similar expedition led by the French navigator Nicolas Baudin in the Le Géographe. The two expeditions met at Encounter Bay.


European settlement


The Wakefieldian experiment began with the official settlement on Dec. 28, 1836, soon after the arrival of the first colonists at Glenelg and Kangaroo Island. Colonel Col. William Light was responsible for the much-admired plan for the city of Adelaide, which was sited a few miles short distance inland from the first landing on the shores of the Gulf of St. Vincent.


Colonial development in the mid-19th century




Aspirations and disappointments

From its inception the colony had entertained grandiose expectations of its future economic and demographic development. There were visions of the Murray River becoming a great trade artery for the eastern quarter of the continent, an antipodean Mississippi with South Australian equivalents of Chicago and New Orleans on its banks. Geographic realities eventually extinguished these those expectations. Similarly, when South Australia acquired the Northern Territory in 1863, the colony mounted ambitious plans for its development and settlement. Its The territory’s chief town, Darwin, was sited on the continent’s northern coast, and the Overland Telegraph Line from Darwin to Adelaide was completed in 1872. But South Australia had overreached its financial capabilities. In 1911 the Northern Territory was passed over to the government of the Commonwealth governmentof Australia; it was an unambiguous acknowledgement of failure.


Shifting the economic base




Between 1947 and 1954 population growth in South Australia was again faster than elsewhere in Australia. It was surprising that South Australia, a relatively small community on the southern fringe of the continent, far from the larger markets and population centres of eastern Australia, was able to sustain such a vigorous program of industrial development. But the long upswing in economic activity began to weaken in the 1970s. South Australia followed the path of many other industrial economies in the last decades of the century, as and the proportion of the population employed in manufacturing fell to 19 below 10 percent in 1981the early 21st century. There was a concurrent shift of the work force workforce into service activities. The government placed great emphasis on the promotion of promoting high-technology growth in the economy and the attraction of attracting imported capital connected with high value-added industries. Its efforts to recruit industry often emphasized the stability of the work force workforce and the high quality and relative cheapness of living standards.

Population history

The Aboriginal population may have been about 25,000 at the time of British colonization. Well-intentioned government policies to protect their interests were rarely given practical effect, and the combined impact of introduced diseases, the loss of land, and falling fertility rates accelerated the decline in numbers. By 1860, colonial opinion fatalistically expected the Aborigines to die out within a few decades. In fact, there was a resurgence of their numbers, if not of their status and economic condition, probably assisted by miscegenationintermarriage with colonists. Government policies shifted toward assimilation by the 1960s. Only then were South Australian Aborigines accorded full citizenship. Aboriginal landrights land rights became an active political issue in the 1970s.

The white population began with large infusions of immigrants, many from the southern parts of England. South Australia’s population increased fivefold between 1844 and 1855, but the colony attracted relatively fewer Irish and Scottish than the rest of Australia. There was a secondary inflow of Germans, whose descendants faced considerable persecution and loss of rights and persecution during World War I . There were new (1914–18). New immigration programs were instituted in the 1850s and ’70s and before and after World War I. Larger inflows from 1945 to 1965 brought many immigrants from continental Europe, notably from Italy, Greece, Poland, and Yugoslavia and later from IndochinaSoutheast Asia. These later waves of immigration substantially altered the formerly homogeneous character of the population.


Political characteristics



Thus, South Australia had obtained established a relatively advanced democratic bicameral government, and its first election on this basis was held in 1857, when the white European population was roughly 110,000. But its subsequent legislative record was less exciting than its conception. Some historians say that South Australia had lost its experimental and intellectual zest , which and that it was not recovered until the last part of the 20th century.

In 1884 South Australia was the first colony in Australia to introduce direct tax taxes on income and land. This reflected not so much advanced redistributive philosophies, however, but rather recurrent overspending by the government on public works programs and an excessive reliance on the London capital market.


Political parties became more clearly defined when leaders emerged to represent the urban and working population. The formation of the United Labor Party in 1891 was a prelude to the first fielding of Labor candidates in elections. This precursor of the contemporary Australian Labor Party (founded 1910) became the dominant vehicle for the interests of the left. Partly in response to Labor, conservative elements notably converged into the Liberal and Country League in 1932.

The conservative party was generally dominant, and it ruled from 1933 to 1965. For the last 28 years of this that period Thomas Playford was premier. During the Playford era the state was transformed from a mainly agricultural economy with a population of 600,000 to a predominantly industrial society with more than a million 1,000,000 people. The Liberals retained power through an electoral system that grossly underrepresented metropolitan Adelaide. By the 1960s it was generally, but not unanimously, agreed that the electoral system was the most backward unbalanced in Australia and had become a political scandal. Opposition to the system became vociferous but was resisted until 1969, when the Liberal government initiated electoral reform despite great internal controversy. When Labor attained power, more thoroughgoing legislation was introduced to redistribute voting power toward the metropolitan population. In 1975 electoral readjustments became the responsibility of a permanent Electoral Commission.






Having been ascendant for nearly two decades under Dunstan and Bannon, the Labor Party’s popularity declined abruptly in the early 1990s in tandem with the collapse of the State Bank, which had accrued a significant debt as a result of ambitious lending strategies. In the 1993 election the party experienced its heaviest defeat in 60 years. The new Liberal government committed itself to a reduced role in the mixed economy, or to the gradual program of reform that both main parties generally embraced.





