Adelaide ( ) is the
capital city
A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses t ...
of
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
,
the state's largest city and the
fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the
Adelaide Hills) or the
Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ad ...
. The
demonym ''Adelaidean'' is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The
Traditional Owners
Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...
of the Adelaide region are the
Kaurna people. The area of the city centre and surrounding parklands is called ' in the
Kaurna language
Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...
.
Adelaide is situated on the
Adelaide Plains north of the
Fleurieu Peninsula
The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide.
History
Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the ...
, between the
Gulf St Vincent
Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, the other being the larger S ...
in the west and the
Mount Lofty Ranges in the east. Its metropolitan area extends from the coast to the
foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges, and stretches from
Gawler
Gawler is the oldest country town on the Australian mainland in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the ...
in the north to
Sellicks Beach in the south.
Named in honour of
Queen Adelaide
, house = Saxe-Meiningen
, father = Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
, mother = Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, Holy  ...
, the city was founded in 1836 as the
planned capital for the only freely-settled British province in Australia.
Colonel William Light
William Light (27 April 1786 – 6 October 1839), also known as Colonel Light, was a British- Malayan naval and army officer. He was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of ...
, one of Adelaide's founding fathers, designed the city centre and chose its location close to the
River Torrens
The River Torrens , (Karrawirra Parri / Karrawirraparri) is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows from its source in the ...
. Light's design, now
listed as national heritage, set out the city centre in a
grid layout known as "
Light's Vision
William Light (27 April 1786 – 6 October 1839), also known as Colonel Light, was a British- Malayan naval and army officer. He was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of ...
", interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by
parklands.
Early colonial Adelaide was shaped by the diversity and wealth of its free settlers, in contrast to the convict history of other Australian cities. Until the
post-war era, it was Australia's third most populated city. It has been noted for its leading examples of religious freedom and progressive political reforms, and became known as the "City of Churches" due to its diversity of faiths. Today, Adelaide is known by
its many festivals and sporting events, its
food and wine
''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and season ...
, its coastline and hills, and its large defence and manufacturing sectors. Adelaide's
quality of life has ranked consistently highly in various measures through the 21st century, at one stage being named Australia's most liveable city.
As South Australia's government and commercial centre, Adelaide is the site of many governmental and financial institutions. Most of these are concentrated in the
city centre along the cultural boulevards of
North Terrace and
King William Street.
History
Before European settlement
The area around modern-day Adelaide was originally inhabited by the Indigenous
Kaurna people, one of many
Aboriginal nations in South Australia. The city and
parklands area was known as Tarntanya, Tandanya (now the short name of
Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute
The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, usually referred to as Tandanya, is an art museum located on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It specialises in promoting Indigenous Australian art, including visual art, music ...
), Tarndanya, or
Tarndanyangga (now the dual name for Victoria Square) in the
Kaurna language
Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...
. The surrounding area was an open grassy plain with patches of trees and shrub which had been managed by hundreds of generations. Kaurna country encompassed the plains which stretched north and south of Tarntanya as well as the wooded foothills of the
Mt Lofty Ranges. The River Torrens was known as the Karrawirra Pari (Red Gum forest river). About 300 Kaurna populated the Adelaide area, and were referred to by the settlers as the Cowandilla.
There were more than 20 local clans across the plain who lived semi-nomadic lives, with extensive
mound settlements where huts were built repeatedly over centuries and a complex social structure including a class of sorcerers separated from regular society.
Within a few decades of European settlement of South Australia, Kaurna culture was almost completely destroyed; the last speaker of
Kaurna language
Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...
died in 1929. Extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both,
which has included a commitment by local and state governments to rename or include Kaurna names for many local places.
19th century
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
was officially established as a British Province in England in February 1836. The first
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
proclaimed the commencement of colonial government in South Australia on 28 December 1836, near
The Old Gum Tree in what is now the suburb of
Glenelg North
Glenelg North is a seaside suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in both the City of Holdfast Bay and the City of West Torrens.
Demographics
The 2011 Census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 5,699 persons in Glenelg ...
. The event is commemorated in South Australia as
Proclamation Day
Proclamation Day is the name of official or unofficial holidays or other anniversaries which commemorate or mark an important proclamation. In some cases it may be the day of, or the anniversary of, the proclamation of a monarch's accession to the ...
. The site of the colony's capital was surveyed and laid out by Colonel
William Light
William Light (27 April 1786 – 6 October 1839), also known as Colonel Light, was a British- Malayan naval and army officer. He was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of ...
, the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, with his own original, unique, topographically sensitive design. The city was named after
Queen Adelaide
, house = Saxe-Meiningen
, father = Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
, mother = Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, Holy  ...
.
Adelaide was established as a planned colony of free immigrants, promising civil liberties and freedom from religious persecution, based upon the ideas of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a member of parliament). He also had significant interests in Brit ...
. Wakefield had read accounts of Australian settlement while in prison in London for attempting to abduct an heiress, and realised that the eastern colonies suffered from a lack of available labour, due to the practice of giving land grants to all arrivals. Wakefield's idea was for the Government to survey and sell the land at a rate that would maintain land values high enough to be unaffordable for labourers and journeymen. Funds raised from the sale of land were to be used to bring out working-class emigrants, who would have to work hard for the monied settlers to ever afford their own land. As a result of this policy, Adelaide does not share
the convict settlement history of other Australian cities like Sydney,
Brisbane and
Hobart.
As it was believed that in a colony of free settlers there would be little crime, no provision was made for a
gaol
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, English language in England, standard English, Australian English, Australian, and Huron Historic Gaol, historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention cen ...
in Colonel Light's 1837 plan. But by mid-1837 the ''
South Australian Register'' was warning of escaped convicts from New South Wales and tenders for a temporary gaol were sought. Following a burglary, a murder, and two attempted murders in Adelaide during March 1838, Governor Hindmarsh created the South Australian Police Force (now the
South Australia Police) in April 1838 under 21-year-old
Henry Inman. The first sheriff, Samuel Smart, was wounded during a robbery, and on 2 May 1838 one of the offenders, Michael Magee, became the first person to be hanged in South Australia. William Baker Ashton was appointed governor of the temporary gaol in 1839, and in 1840 George Strickland Kingston was commissioned to design Adelaide's new gaol. Construction of
Adelaide Gaol
Adelaide Gaol is a former Australian prison located in the Park Lands of Adelaide, in the state of South Australia. The gaol was the first permanent one in South Australia and operated from 1841 until 1988. The Gaol is one of the two oldest bui ...
commenced in 1841.
Adelaide's early history was marked by economic uncertainty and questionable leadership. The first governor of South Australia,
John Hindmarsh, clashed frequently with others, in particular the Resident Commissioner,
James Hurtle Fisher. The rural area surrounding Adelaide was surveyed by Light in preparation to sell a total of over of land. Adelaide's early economy started to get on its feet in 1838 with the arrival of livestock from
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
,
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
and
Tasmania. Wool production provided an early basis for the South Australian economy. By 1860, wheat farms had been established from
Encounter Bay
Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baudi ...
in the south to
Clare in the north.
George Gawler
Lieutenant-Colonel George Gawler, KH, (21 July 1795 – 7 May 1869) was the second Governor of South Australia, at the same time serving as Resident Commissioner, from 17 October 1838 until 15 May 1841.
Biography Early life
Gawler, born on 2 ...
took over from Hindmarsh in late 1838 and, despite being under orders from the ''Select Committee on South Australia'' in Britain not to undertake any public works, promptly oversaw construction of a governor's house, the
Adelaide Gaol
Adelaide Gaol is a former Australian prison located in the Park Lands of Adelaide, in the state of South Australia. The gaol was the first permanent one in South Australia and operated from 1841 until 1988. The Gaol is one of the two oldest bui ...
, police barracks, a hospital, a
customs house
A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...
and a wharf at
Port Adelaide. Gawler was recalled and replaced by
George Edward Grey in 1841. Grey slashed public expenditure against heavy opposition, although its impact was negligible at this point: silver was discovered in
Glen Osmond
Glen Osmond is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in the City of Burnside which is in the foothills of the Adelaide Hills. It is well known for the road intersection on the western side of the suburb, where the South Eastern Freeway (National ...
that year, agriculture was well underway, and other mines sprung up all over the state, aiding Adelaide's commercial development. The city exported meat, wool, wine, fruit and wheat by the time Grey left in 1845, contrasting with a low point in 1842 when one-third of Adelaide houses were abandoned.
Trade links with the rest of the Australian states were established after the
Murray River
The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest ...
was successfully navigated in 1853 by
Francis Cadell, an Adelaide resident. South Australia became a
self-governing colony in 1856 with the ratification of a new constitution by the British parliament.
Secret ballots were introduced, and a
bicameral parliament was elected on 9 March 1857, by which time 109,917 people lived in the province.
In 1860, the
Thorndon Park reservoir was opened, finally providing an alternative water source to the now turbid River Torrens. Gas street lighting was implemented in 1867, the
University of Adelaide was founded in 1874, the
South Australian Art Gallery opened in 1881 and the
Happy Valley Reservoir opened in 1896. In the 1890s Australia was affected by a severe economic depression, ending a hectic era of land booms and tumultuous expansionism. Financial institutions in Melbourne and banks in Sydney closed. The national fertility rate fell and immigration was reduced to a trickle. The value of South Australia's exports nearly halved. Drought and poor harvests from 1884 compounded the problems, with some families leaving for Western Australia. Adelaide was not as badly hit as the larger gold-rush cities of Sydney and Melbourne, and silver and lead discoveries at
Broken Hill provided some relief. Only one year of deficit was recorded, but the price paid was retrenchments and lean public spending. Wine and copper were the only industries not to suffer a downturn.
20th century
Adelaide was Australia's third largest city for most of the 20th century.
Electric street lighting was introduced in 1900 and electric trams were transporting passengers in 1909. 28,000 men were sent to fight in World War I. Historian F. W. Crowley examined the reports of visitors in the early 20th century, noting that "many visitors to Adelaide admired the
foresighted planning of its founders", as well as pondering the riches of the young city. Adelaide enjoyed a postwar boom, entering a time of relative prosperity. Its population grew, and it became the third most populous metropolitan area in the country, after Sydney and Melbourne. Its prosperity was short-lived, with the return of droughts and the
Great Depression of the 1930s. It later returned to fortune under strong government leadership.
Secondary industries helped reduce the state's dependence on
primary industries. World War II brought industrial stimulus and diversification to Adelaide under the
Playford Government, which advocated Adelaide as a safe place for manufacturing due to its less vulnerable location. Shipbuilding was expanded at the nearby port of
Whyalla.
The South Australian Government in this period built on former wartime manufacturing industries but neglected cultural facilities which meant South Australia's economy lagged behind.
International manufacturers like General Motors
Holden and
Chrysler made use of these factories around the Adelaide area in suburbs like
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
, completing its transformation from an agricultural service centre to a 20th-century motor city. The
Mannum–Adelaide pipeline
The Mannum–Adelaide pipeline is a water pipeline in South Australia. It was the first major pipeline built from the River Murray to serve Adelaide. The pipeline project was started in 1949 and completed in March 1955. After suffering water re ...
brought
River Murray water to Adelaide in 1955 and
an airport opened at
West Beach in 1955.
Flinders University and the
Flinders Medical Centre
Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) is a major public tertiary hospital and teaching school, co-located with Flinders University and the 130 bed Flinders Private Hospital located at Bedford Park, South Australia. It opened in 1976. It serves as the t ...
were established in the 1960s at Bedford Park, south of the city. Today, Flinders Medical Centre is one of the largest teaching hospitals in South Australia. In the post-war years around the early 1960s, Adelaide was surpassed by Brisbane as Australia's third largest city.
The
Dunstan Governments of the 1970s saw something of an Adelaide 'cultural revival', establishing a wide array of social reforms. The city became noted for its progressivism as South Australia became the first Australian state or territory to
decriminalise homosexuality between consenting adults in 1975.
It also became a centre for the arts, building upon the biennial "
Adelaide Festival of Arts" that commenced in 1960. Adelaide hosted the
Formula One Australian Grand Prix between 1985 and 1995 on a street circuit in the city's east parklands; it moved to Melbourne in 1996.
The
State Bank
A state bank is generally a financial institution that is chartered by a federated state, as opposed to one regulated at the federal or national level. State banks differ from a reserve bank in that it does not necessarily control monetary polic ...
collapsed in 1991 during an economic recession; the effects lasted until 2004, when
Standard & Poor's reinstated South Australia's AAA credit rating. From
1999 until
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
, the
Adelaide 500
The Adelaide 500 (also known as the VALO Adelaide 500 for sponsorship reasons) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars held on the streets of the east end of Adelaide, South Australia between 1999 to 2020 and again from 2022. It is someti ...
Supercars race has made use of sections of the former Formula One circuit. Adelaide's tallest building, completed in 2020, is called the Adelaidean and is located at 11 Frome Street.
21st century
In the early years of the 21st century, a significant increase in the state government's spending on Adelaide's infrastructure occurred. The
Rann government invested A$535 million in a major upgrade of the Adelaide Oval to enable
Australian Football League to be played in the city centre and more than A$2
billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:
*1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English.
* 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...
to build a new
Royal Adelaide Hospital
The Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), colloquially known by its initials or pronounced as "the Rah", is South Australia's largest hospital, owned by the state government as part of Australia's public health care system. The RAH provides tertiary hea ...
on land adjacent to the Adelaide Railway Station. The Glenelg tramline was extended through the city to Hindmarsh down to East Terrace and the suburban railway line extended south to Seaford.
Following a period of stagnation in the 1990s and 2000s, Adelaide began several major developments and redevelopments. The Adelaide Convention Centre was redeveloped and expanded at a cost of A$350 million beginning in 2012. Three historic buildings were adapted for modern use: the
Torrens Building
The Torrens Building, named after Sir Robert Richard Torrens, is a State Heritage-listed building on the corner of Victoria Square and Wakefield Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It was originally known as the New Government Offices, and a ...
in Victoria Square as the Adelaide campus for Carnegie Mellon University, University College London, and Torrens University; the Stock Exchange building as the Science Exchange of the Royal Institution Australia; and the Glenside Psychiatric Hospital as the Adelaide Studios of the
SA Film Corporation. The government also invested more than A$2 billion to build a
desalination plant, powered by renewable energy, as an 'insurance policy' against droughts affecting Adelaide's
water supply. The
Adelaide Festival,
Fringe
Fringe may refer to:
Arts
* Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, known as "the Fringe"
* Adelaide Fringe, the world's second-largest annual arts festival
* Fringe theatre, a name for alternative theatre
* The Fringe, the ...
, and
Womadelaide
WOMADelaide is an annual four-day festival of Music, Arts and Dance, which was first held in 1992 in Botanic Park, Adelaide, South Australia. One of many WOMAD festivals held around the world, it is a four-day event that presents a diverse selec ...
became annual events.
The COVID-19 Pandemic had an impact the economy and resident life of the city. Comparing to other major cities in Australia, Adelaide is less affected. The city only went to fully lockdown twice since the beginning of the pandemic, once in November 2020 (4 days) and another once in July 2021 (7 days), despite being the nearest city to Melbourne (
262 days of lockdown) with 1 million or more population.
Geography
Adelaide is north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges. The city stretches from the coast to the foothills, and from
Gawler
Gawler is the oldest country town on the Australian mainland in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the ...
at its northern extent to
Sellicks Beach in the south. According to the Regional Development Australia, an Australian government planning initiative, the "Adelaide Metropolitan Region" has a total land area of , while a more expansive definition by the Australian Bureau of Statistics defines a "Greater Adelaide" statistical area totalling .
The city sits at an average elevation of above sea level.
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia.
The mountain's s ...
, east of the Adelaide metropolitan region in the Adelaide Hills at an elevation of , is the tallest point of the city and in the state south of
Burra. The city borders the
Temperate Grassland of South Australia in the east, an endangered vegetation community.
Much of Adelaide was bushland before British settlement, with some variation – sandhills, swamps and marshlands were prevalent around the coast. The loss of the sandhills to urban development had a particularly destructive effect on the coastline due to erosion. Where practical, the government has implemented programs to rebuild and vegetate sandhills at several of Adelaide's beachside suburbs. Much of the original vegetation has been cleared with what is left to be found in reserves such as the
Cleland National Park
Cleland National Park, formerly Cleland Conservation Park, is a protected area located in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia about south-east of the Adelaide city centre. It conserves a significant area of natural bushland on the Adelaide ...
and
Belair National Park. A number of creeks and rivers flow through the Adelaide region. The largest are the Torrens and
Onkaparinga catchments. Adelaide relies on its many reservoirs for water supply with the
Happy Valley Reservoir supplying around 40% and the much larger
Mount Bold Reservoir 10% of Adelaide's domestic requirements respectively.
Geology
Adelaide and its surrounding area is one of the most seismically active regions in Australia. On 1 March 1954 at 3:40 am Adelaide experienced its largest recorded earthquake to date, with the epicentre 12 km from the city centre at
Darlington, and a reported magnitude of 5.6. There have been smaller earthquakes in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2018.
The uplands of the
Adelaide Hills, part of the southern
Mount Lofty Ranges to the east of Adelaide, are defined on their western side by a number of arcuate faults (the Para, Eden, Clarendon and Willunga Faults), and consist of rocks such as
siltstone,
dolomite and
quartzite, dating from the
Neoproterozoic
The Neoproterozoic Era is the unit of geologic time from 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago.
It is the last era of the Precambrian Supereon and the Proterozoic Eon; it is subdivided into the Tonian, Cryogenian, and Ediacaran periods. It is prec ...
to the middle
Cambrian, laid down in the Adelaide Rift Complex, the oldest part of the
Adelaide Superbasin
The Adelaide Superbasin (previously known as the Adelaide Geosyncline and Adelaide Rift Complex) is a major Neoproterozoic to middle Cambrian geological province in central and south-east South Australia, western New South Wales, and western Vic ...
.
Most of the Adelaide metropolitan area lies in the downthrown St Vincent Basin and its embayments, including the
Adelaide Plains Sub-basin, and the Golden Grove, Noarlunga and Willunga Embayments. These basins contain deposits of
Tertiary marine and non-marine sands and limestones, which form important aquifers. These deposits are overlain by
Quaternary alluvial fan
An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to semiarid climates, but a ...
s and
piedmont slope deposits, derived from erosion of the uplands, consisting of sands, clays and gravels, interfingering to the west with
transgressive Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
to
Holocene marine sands and coastal sediments of the shoreline of Gulf St Vincent.
Urban layout
Adelaide is a planned city, designed by the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, Colonel
William Light
William Light (27 April 1786 – 6 October 1839), also known as Colonel Light, was a British- Malayan naval and army officer. He was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of ...
. His plan, sometimes referred to as "Light's Vision" (also the name of a statue of him on
Montefiore Hill), arranged Adelaide in a
grid
Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to:
Common usage
* Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road
* Grid reference, used to define a location on a map
Arts, entertainment, and media
* News ...
, with
five squares in the
Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ad ...
and a ring of parks, known as the
Adelaide Parklands, surrounding it. Light's selection of the location for the city was initially unpopular with the early settlers, as well as South Australia's first governor, John Hindmarsh, due to its distance from the harbour at Port Adelaide, and the lack of fresh water there. Light successfully persisted with his choice of location against this initial opposition. Recent evidence suggests that Light worked closely with George Kingston as well as a team of men to set out Adelaide, using various templates for city plans going back to
Ancient Greece, including
Italian Renaissance designs and the similar layouts of the American cities
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
and
Savannah–which, like Adelaide, follow the same layout of a central city square, four complementing city squares surrounding it and a parklands area that surrounds the city centre.
The benefits of Light's design are numerous: Adelaide has had wide multi-lane roads from its beginning, an easily navigable
cardinal direction grid layout and an expansive green ring around the city centre. There are two sets of
ring roads in Adelaide that have resulted from the original design. The
inner ring route (
A21) borders the parklands, and the outer route (
A3/
A13/
A16/
A17) completely bypasses the inner city via (in clockwise order)
Grand Junction Road, Hampstead Road, Ascot Avenue,
Portrush Road,
Cross Road and
South Road.
Suburban expansion has to some extent outgrown Light's original plan. Numerous former outlying villages and "country towns", as well as the satellite city of
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
, have been enveloped by its
suburban sprawl. Expanding developments in the Adelaide Hills region led to the construction of the
South Eastern Freeway
South Eastern Freeway is a freeway in South Australia (SA). It is a part of the National Highway network linking the state capital cities of Adelaide, SA, and Melbourne, Victoria, and signed as National Highway M1. It carries traffic over t ...
to cope with growth, which has subsequently led to new developments and further improvements to that transport corridor. Similarly, the booming development in Adelaide's
South led to the construction of the
Southern Expressway.
New roads are not the only transport infrastructure developed to cope with the urban growth. The
O-Bahn Busway
The O-Bahn Busway is a guided busway that is part of the bus rapid transit system servicing the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. The O-Bahn system was conceived by Daimler-Benz to enable buses to avoid traffic congestion by s ...
is an example of a unique solution to
Tea Tree Gully's transport woes in the 1980s. The development of the nearby suburb of
Golden Grove in the late 1980s is an example of well-thought-out urban planning.
In the 1960s, a
Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study
The Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study, or "MATS Plan" as it became known, was a comprehensive transport plan released in 1968 proposing a number of road and rail transport projects for the metropolitan area of Adelaide, South Australia.
It ...
Plan was proposed to cater for the future growth of the city. The plan involved the construction of freeways,
expressways and the upgrade of certain aspects of the public transport system. The then premier
Steele Hall
Raymond Steele Hall (born 30 November 1928) is a former Australian politician who served as the 36th Premier of South Australia from 1968 to 1970. He also served in the federal Parliament as a senator for South Australia from 1974 to 1977 and ...
approved many parts of the plan and the government went as far as purchasing land for the project. The later
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
government elected under
Don Dunstan
Donald Allan Dunstan (21 September 1926 – 6 February 1999) was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for th ...
shelved the plan, but allowed the purchased land to remain vacant, should the future need for freeways arise. In 1980, the
Liberal party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
won government and premier
David Tonkin committed his government to selling off the land acquired for the MATS plan, ensuring that even when needs changed, the construction of most MATS-proposed freeways would be impractical. Some parts of this land have been used for transport, (e.g. the O-Bahn Busway and Southern Expressway), while most has been progressively subdivided for residential use.
In 2008, the
SA Government announced plans for a network of
transport-oriented developments across the Adelaide metropolitan area and purchased a
10 hectare industrial site at
Bowden Bowden may refer to:
Places Australia
* Bowden Island, one of the Family Islands in Queensland
* Bowden, South Australia, northwestern suburb of Adelaide
* Bowden railway station
Canada
* Bowden, Alberta, town in central Alberta
England
* Bowde ...
for $52.5 million as the first of these developments. The site covers 102,478 square metres, or about 10 hectares, and is bounded by Park Terrace to the south, the Adelaide to Outer Harbour railway line to the west, Drayton Street to the north and Sixth and Seventh Streets to the east.
File:Adelaide South Australia - panoramio.jpg, The Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ad ...
was built on a grid plan, known as ''Light's Vision''
File:Cnr of Pulteney and North Terrace, Adelaide.png, The corner of North Terrace (right) and Pulteney Street
Pulteney Street is a main road which runs north-south through the middle of the eastern half of the Adelaide city centre, in Adelaide, South Australia. It runs north-south from North Terrace, through Hindmarsh and Hurtle Squares, to South ...
(left), looking south-west from near Bonython Hall.
File:Transformers - Victoria Square Adelaide SA - panoramio.jpg, Aerial view of Victoria Square, one of the five main squares in the city centre and considered the heart of Adelaide's grid layout.
Housing
Historically, Adelaide's suburban residential areas have been characterised by single-storey detached houses built on blocks. A relative lack of suitable, locally-available timber for construction purposes led to the early development of a brick-making industry, as well as the use of stone, for houses and other buildings. By 1891, 68% of houses were built of stone, 15% of timber, and 10% of brick, with brick also being widely used in stone houses for quoins, door and window surrounds, and chimneys and fireplaces.
There is a wide variety in the styles of these houses. Until the 1960s, most of the more substantial houses were built of red brick, though many front walls were of ornamental stone. Then cream bricks became fashionable, and in the 1970s, deep red and brown bricks became popular. Until the 1970s, roofs tended to be clad with (painted)
corrugated iron
Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a ...
or tiles (cement or clay, usually red "terracotta"). Since then,
Colorbond corrugated steel has dominated. Most roofs are pitched; flat roofs are not common. Up to the 1970s, most houses were of "double brick" construction on concrete footings, with timber floors laid on joists supported by "dwarf walls". Later houses have mainly been of "
brick veneer
Masonry veneer walls consist of a single non-structural external layer of masonry, typically made of brick, stone or manufactured stone. Masonry veneer can have an air space behind it and is technically called "anchored veneer". A masonry veneer ...
" construction – structural
timber or, more recently,
lightweight steel frame on a
concrete slab foundation
Foundation may refer to:
* Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization
** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S.
** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...
, lined with
Gyprock, and with an outer skin of brickwork,
[Rosemary Cadden: ''Building South Australia: celebrating 125 years''. Solstice Media. pp. 77, 87. ] to cope with Adelaide's
reactive soils, particularly Keswick Clay, black earth and some red-brown earth soils. The use of precast concrete panels for floor and wall construction has also increased.
In addition to this, a significant factor in Adelaide's suburban history is the role of the
South Australian Housing Trust
The South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) is an independent statutory authority originally established by the Government of South Australia responsible for providing low-cost rental housing to working people and their families, as a means of s ...
.
File:Adelaide-NthTce-EastEnd-TerraceHouses-Aug08.jpg, Terraced housing on North Terrace.
File:Fitzroy sa bluestone 1.jpg, A bluestone villa, typical of the housing in Fitzroy.
File:Maison à Adelaide.JPG, Heritage-listed house showing wrought-iron lacework and corrugated-iron verandah.
Climate
Adelaide has a
Mediterranean climate (
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
: Csa). The city has hot, dry summers and cool winters with moderate rainfall. Most
precipitation falls in the winter months, leading to the suggestion that the climate be classified as a "cold monsoon". Rainfall is unreliable, light and infrequent throughout summer, although heavy falls can occur. In contrast, the winter has fairly reliable rainfall with June being the wettest month of the year, averaging around 80 mm.
Frosts are occasional, with the most notable occurrences in 1908 and 1982. Hail is also common in winter.
Adelaide is a windy city with significant
wind chill in winter, which makes the temperature
seem colder than it actually is. Snowfall in the metropolitan area is extremely uncommon, although light and sporadic falls in the nearby hills and at
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia.
The mountain's s ...
occur during winter. Dewpoints in the summer typically range from . There are usually several days in summer where the temperature reaches or above; the frequency of these temperatures has been
increasing in recent years. Temperature extremes range from -0.4 °C (31.4 °F), 8 June 1982 to 47.7 °C (117.9 °F), 24 January 2019. The city features 90.6 clear days annually.
The average sea temperature ranges from in August to in February.
Liveability
Adelaide was consistently ranked in the world's 10
most liveable cities through the 2010s by
The Economist Intelligence Unit.
In June 2021, ''The Economist'' ranked Adelaide the third most liveable city in the world, behind
Auckland and
Osaka.
In December 2021, Adelaide was named the world's second National Park City, after the state government had lobbied for this title.
It was ranked the
most liveable city in Australia by the
Property Council of Australia, based on surveys of residents’ views of their own city, between 2010 and 2013, dropping to second place in 2014.
Governance
Adelaide, as the capital of South Australia, is the seat of the
Government of South Australia as well as the
bicameral Parliament of South Australia, which consists of the
lower house known as the
House of Assembly and the
upper house known as the
Legislative Council.
General elections
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
are held every four years, the last being the
2022 South Australian state election
The 2022 South Australian state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were elected at the 2018 election), and half t ...
. As Adelaide is South Australia's capital and most populous city, the
State Government co-operates extensively with the
City of Adelaide
The City of Adelaide, also known as the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and Adelaide City Council is a local government area in the metropolitan area of greater Adelaide, South Australia and is legally defined as the capital city of South ...
. In 2006, the Ministry for the City of Adelaide was created to facilitate the State Government's collaboration with the
Adelaide City Council and the Lord Mayor to improve Adelaide's image. The State Parliament's Capital City Committee is also involved in the governance of the City of Adelaide, being primarily concerned with the planning of Adelaide's urban development and growth.
Reflecting South Australia's status as Australia's most centralised state, Adelaide elects a substantial majority of the South Australian House of Assembly. Of the 47 seats in the chamber, 34 seats (three-quarters of the legislature) are based in Adelaide, and two rural seats include Adelaide suburbs.
Local governments
The Adelaide metropolitan area is divided between nineteen
local government areas. At its centre, the
City of Adelaide
The City of Adelaide, also known as the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and Adelaide City Council is a local government area in the metropolitan area of greater Adelaide, South Australia and is legally defined as the capital city of South ...
administers the
Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ad ...
,
North Adelaide, and the surrounding
Adelaide Parklands. It is the oldest municipal authority in Australia and was established in 1840, when Adelaide and Australia's first mayor,
James Hurtle Fisher, was elected. From 1919 onwards, the city has had a
Lord Mayor, the current being Lord Mayor ''The Right Honourable''
Sandy Verschoor.
Demography
Adelaide's inhabitants are known as Adelaideans.
Compared with Australia's other state capitals, Adelaide is growing at a rate similar to Sydney, Canberra, and Hobart (see
List of cities in Australia by population). In 2020, it had a metropolitan population (including suburbs) of more than 1,376,601,
[ Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018.] making it Australia's fifth-largest city. Some 77% of the population of South Australia are residents of the Adelaide metropolitan area, making South Australia one of the most centralised states.
Major areas of population growth in recent years have been in outer suburbs such as
Mawson Lakes and Golden Grove. Adelaide's inhabitants occupy 366,912 houses, 57,695 semi-detached, row terrace or town houses and 49,413 flats, units or apartments.
About one sixth (17.1%) of the population had university qualifications. The number of Adelaideans with vocational qualifications (such as tradespersons) fell from 62.1% of the labour force in the 1991 census to 52.4% in the 2001 census.
Adelaide is ageing more rapidly than other Australian capital cities. More than a quarter (27.5%) of Adelaide's population is aged 55 years or older, in comparison to the national average of 25.6%. Adelaide has the lowest number of children (under-15-year-olds), who comprised 17.7% of the population, compared to the national average of 19.3%.
Ancestry and immigration
At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:
Overseas-born Adelaideans composed 31.3% of the total population at the 2021 census. The five largest groups of overseas-born were from England (5.7%), India (3.1%),
Mainland China (1.8%), Vietnam (1.2%) and Italy (1.1%).
Suburbs including
Newton,
Payneham and
Campbelltown in the east and
Torrensville,
West Lakes
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
and
Fulham to the west, have large
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
communities. The Italian consulate is located in the eastern suburb of
Payneham. Large
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
populations are settled in the north-western suburbs of
Woodville,
Kilkenny,
Pennington,
Mansfield Park and
Athol Park and also
Parafield Gardens and
Pooraka in Adelaide's north. Migrants from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Sri Lanka have settled into inner suburban areas of Adelaide including the inner northern suburbs of
Blair Athol,
Kilburn and
Enfield
Enfield may refer to:
Places Australia
* Enfield, New South Wales
* Enfield, South Australia
** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb
** Enfield High School (South Australia)
...
and the inner southern suburbs of
Plympton
Plympton is a suburb of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England. It is in origin an ancient stannary town. It was an important trading centre for locally mined tin, and a seaport before the River Plym silted up and trade moved down river to P ...
,
Park Holme and
Kurralta Park.
Suburbs such as
Para Hills,
Salisbury,
Ingle Farm
Ingle Farm is an established, residential suburb, with some parklands, of about 8,500 people in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. It is located at the base of the Mount Lofty Ranges foothills, around 12 kilometres north-east of ...
and
Blair Athol in the north and
Findon,
West Croydon and
Seaton and other Western suburbs have sizeable
Afghan communities.
Chinese migrants favour settling in the eastern and north eastern suburbs including
Kensington Gardens,
Greenacres,
Modbury
Modbury is a large village, ecclesiastical parish, civil parish and former manor situated in the South Hams district of the county of Devon in England. Today due to its large size it is generally referred to as a "town" although the parish co ...
and
Golden Grove.
Mawson Lakes has a large international student population, due to its proximity to the
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...
campus.
At the 2021 census, 1.7% of Adelaide's population identified as being
Indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
—
Aboriginal Australians and
Torres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often groupe ...
.
Language
At the 2016 census, 75.4% of the population spoke
English at home. The other languages most commonly spoken at home were Italian (2.1%),
Standard Mandarin (2.1%), Greek (1.7%) Vietnamese (1.4%), and
Cantonese (0.7%).
The
Kaurna language
Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...
, spoken by the area's original inhabitants, had no living speakers in the middle of the 20th century, but since the 1990's there has been a sustained revival effort from academics and Kaurna elders.
Religion
Adelaide was founded on a vision of religious tolerance that attracted a wide variety of religious practitioners. This led to it being known as ''The City of Churches''. But approximately 28% of the population expressed no religious affiliation in the 2011 Census, compared with the national average of 22.3%, making Adelaide one of Australia's least religious cities. Over half of the population of Adelaide identifies as Christian, with the largest denominations being
Catholic (21.3%),
Anglican (12.6%),
Uniting Church (7.6%) and
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
(3.5%).
The Jewish community of the city dates back to 1840. Eight years later, 58 Jews lived in the city.
[Adelaide]
, Jewish Virtual Library, Encyclopaedia Judica, 2008. A synagogue was built in 1871, when 435 Jews lived in the city. Many took part in the city councils, such as Judah Moss Solomon (1852–66) and others after him. Three Jews have been elected to the position of city mayor. In 1968, the Jewish population of Adelaide numbered about 1,200; in 2001, according to the Australian census, 979 persons declared themselves to be Jewish by religion.
In 2011, over 1,000 Jews were living in the city, operating an
Orthodox and a
Reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...
school, in addition to a virtual Jewish museum.
The "
Afghan" community in Australia first became established in the 1860s when camels and their Pathan, Punjabi, Baluchi and Sindhi handlers began to be used to open up settlement in the continent's arid interior. Until eventually superseded by the advent of the railways and motor vehicles, camels played an invaluable economic and social role in transporting heavy loads of goods to and from isolated settlements and mines. This is acknowledged by the name of
The Ghan, the passenger train operating between Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Darwin. The
Central Adelaide Mosque is regarded as Australia's oldest permanent mosque; an earlier
mosque at Marree in northern South Australia, dating from 1861 to 1862 and subsequently abandoned or demolished, has now been rebuilt.
Economy
South Australia's largest employment sectors are health care and social assistance,
surpassing manufacturing in SA as the largest employer since 2006–07.
In 2009–10, manufacturing in SA had average annual employment of 83,700 persons compared with 103,300 for health care and social assistance.
Health care and social assistance represented nearly 13% of the state average annual employment.
[1345.4 – SA Stats, Apr 2011]
. abs.gov.au. Retrieved 26 July 2013. The
Adelaide Hills wine region
Adelaide Hills is an Australian geographical indication for wine made from grapes grown in a specific area of the Adelaide Hills east of Adelaide in South Australia.
Extent and appellation
The Adelaide Hills wine region covers an area extendi ...
is an iconic and viable economic region for both the state and country in terms of wine production and sale. The 2014 vintage is reported as consisting of red grapes crushed valued at A$8,196,142 and white grapes crushed valued at $14,777,631.
[PGIBSA, 2014, page 25]
The retail trade is the second largest employer in SA (2009–10), with 91,900 jobs, and 12 per cent of the state workforce.
Manufacturing, defence technology, high-tech electronic systems and research, commodity export and corresponding service industries all play a role in the SA economy. Almost half of all cars produced in Australia were made in Adelaide at the
General Motors Holden plant in
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
. The site ceased operating in November 2017.
The
collapse of the State Bank in 1992 resulted in large levels of state public debt (as much as A$4 billion). The collapse meant that successive governments enacted lean budgets, cutting spending, which was a setback to the further economic development of the city and state. The debt has more recently been reduced with the State Government once again receiving a AAA+ Credit Rating.
The global media conglomerate
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...
was founded in, and until 2004 incorporated in, Adelaide and it is still considered its "spiritual" home by its founder,
Rupert Murdoch. Australia's largest oil company,
Santos, prominent South Australian brewery,
Coopers, and national retailer
Harris Scarfe
Harris Scarfe is an Australian retailer that sells bed linen, kitchenware, homewares, electrical appliances and apparel. It has a e-commerce retail presence in Australia and is considered a multi-channel lifestyle and homewares store.
Founded in ...
also call Adelaide their home.
In 2018, at which time more than 80 organisations employed 800 people in the space sector in South Australia, Adelaide was chosen for the headquarters of a new
Australian Space Agency. The agency opened its in 2020. It is working to triple the size of the Australian space industry and create 20,000 new jobs by 2030.
Defence industry
Adelaide is home to a large proportion of Australia's defence industries, which contribute over A$1 billion to South Australia's Gross State Product. The principal government military research institution, the
Defence Science and Technology Organisation
The Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) is part of the Australian Department of Defence dedicated to providing science and technology support to safeguard Australia and its national interests. The agency's name was changed from Defenc ...
, and other defence technology organisations such as
BAE Systems Australia
BAE Systems Australia, a subsidiary of BAE Systems plc, is one of the largest defence contractors in Australia. It was formed by the merger of British Aerospace Australia and GEC-Marconi Systems and expanded by the acquisitions of Armor Holding ...
and Lockheed Martin Australia, are north of Salisbury and west of Elizabeth in an area now called "Edinburgh Parks", adjacent to
RAAF Base Edinburgh
RAAF Base Edinburgh is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) military airbase located in Edinburgh approximately north of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia and forms part of the Edinburgh Defence Precinct.
The base is primarily home to No 9 ...
.
Others, such as Saab Systems and Raytheon, are in or near
Technology Park.
ASC Pty Ltd
ASC Pty Ltd, formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation, is an Australian government business enterprise involved with Australian naval shipbuilding, headquartered in Osborne, South Australia. It is notable for the construction and main ...
, is based in the industrial suburb of
Osborne and is also a part of
Technology Park. South Australia was charged with constructing Australia's s and more recently the A$6 billion contract to construct the
Royal Australian Navy's new
air-warfare destroyers.
Employment statistics
, Greater Adelaide had an unemployment rate of 7.4% with a youth unemployment rate of 15%.
The median weekly individual income for people aged 15 years and over was $447 per week in 2006, compared with $466 nationally. The median family income was $1,137 per week, compared with $1,171 nationally.
Adelaide's housing and living costs are substantially lower than that of other Australian cities, with housing being notably cheaper. The median Adelaide house price is half that of Sydney and two-thirds that of Melbourne. The three-month trend unemployment rate to March 2007 was 6.2%. The Northern suburbs' unemployment rate is disproportionately higher than the other regions of Adelaide at 8.3%, while the East and South are lower than the Adelaide average at 4.9% and 5.0% respectively.
House prices
Over the decade March 2001 – March 2010, Metropolitan Adelaide median house prices approximately tripled. (approx. 285% – approx. 11%p.a. compounding)
In the five years March 2007 – March 2012, prices increased by approx. 27% – approx. 5%p.a. compounding. March 2012 – March 2017 saw a further increase of 19% – approx. 3.5%p.a. compounding.
In summary:
Each quarter,
The Alternative and Direct Investment Securities Association (ADISA) publishes a list of median house sale prices by suburb and
Local Government Area. (Previously, this was done by REISA
) Due to the small sizes of many of Adelaide's suburbs, the low volumes of sales in these suburbs, and (over time) the huge variations in the numbers of sales in a suburb in a quarter, statistical analysis of "the most expensive suburb" is unreliable; the suburbs appearing in the "top 10 most expensive suburbs this quarter" list is constantly varying. Quarterly Reports for the last two years can be found on the REISA website.
Education and research
Education forms an increasingly important part of the city's economy, with the
South Australian Government
The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government, SA Government or more formally, His Majesty’s Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of South Australia. It is modelled o ...
and educational institutions attempting to position Adelaide as "Australia's education hub" and marketing it as a "Learning City."
The number of international students studying in Adelaide has increased rapidly in recent years to 30,726 in 2015, of which 1,824 were secondary school students.
In addition to the city's existing institutions, foreign institutions have been attracted to set up campuses to increase its attractiveness as an education hub.
Adelaide is the birthplace of three Nobel laureates,
more than any other Australian city: physicist
William Lawrence Bragg
Sir William Lawrence Bragg, (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structu ...
and pathologists
Howard Florey and
Robin Warren, all of whom completed secondary and tertiary education at
St Peter's College and the
University of Adelaide.
Primary and secondary education
At the level of primary and secondary education, there are two systems of school education. There is a public system operated by the South Australian Government and a private system of independent and Catholic schools.
South Australian schools provide education under the
Australian Curriculum
The Australian Curriculum is a national curriculum for all primary and secondary schools in Australia under progressive development, review, and implementation. The curriculum is developed and reviewed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment ...
for reception to Year 10 students. In Years 10 to 12, students study for the
South Australian Certificate of Education
The South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) is awarded to students who have successfully completed their senior secondary schooling in the state of South Australia.
The SACE Board of South Australia (formerly known as the Senior Secondar ...
(SACE). They have the option of incorporating
vocational education and training (VET) courses or a flexible learning option (FLO). South Australia also has 24 schools that use
International Baccalaureate programs as an alternative to the Australian Curriculum or SACE. These programs include the
IB Primary Years Programme, the
IB Middle Years Programme, and the
IB Diploma Programme
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...
.
For South Australian students who cannot attend a traditional school, including students who live in rural or remote areas, the state government runs the Open Access College (OAC), which provides virtual teaching. The OAC has a campus in
Marden which caters to students from reception to Year 12 and adults who haven't been able to complete their SACE. Guardians are also able to apply for their child to be educated from home as long as they provide an education program which meets the same requirements as the Australian Curriculum as well as opportunities for social interaction.
Tertiary education
There are three public universities local to Adelaide, as well as one private university and three constituent colleges of foreign universities.
Flinders University of South Australia, the
University of Adelaide, the
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...
and
Torrens University Australia
Torrens University is an Australian international private, for-profit university and vocational registered training organisation, with campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast, Blue Mountains, Australia, Auckland, New Z ...
—part of the
Laureate International Universities are based in Adelaide. The University of Adelaide was ranked in the top 150 universities worldwide. Flinders ranked in the top 250 and Uni SA in the top 300. Torrens University Australia is part of an international network of over 70 higher education institutions in more than 30 countries worldwide. The historic Torrens Building in
Victoria Square houses
Carnegie Mellon University's
Heinz College Australia, and
University College London's School of Energy and Resources (Australia), and constitute the city's international university precinct.
The
University of Adelaide, with 25,000 students, is Australia's third-oldest university and a member of the leading "
Group of Eight
The Group of Eight (G8) was an inter-governmental political forum from 1997 until 2014. It had formed from incorporating Russia into the Group of Seven, or G7, and returned to its previous name after Russia left in 2014.
The forum originate ...
". It has five campuses throughout the state, including two in the city-centre, and a campus in Singapore. The
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...
, with 37,000 students, has two North Terrace campuses, three other campuses in the metropolitan area and campuses in the regional cities of
Whyalla and
Mount Gambier
Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with an estimated urban population of 33,233 . The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about south-east of the capital Ad ...
.
Flinders University, with 25,184 students, is based in the southern suburb of
Bedford Park, alongside the
Flinders Medical Centre
Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) is a major public tertiary hospital and teaching school, co-located with Flinders University and the 130 bed Flinders Private Hospital located at Bedford Park, South Australia. It opened in 1976. It serves as the t ...
, with additional campuses in neighbouring
Tonsley and in Victoria Square in the city centre.
The
Adelaide College of Divinity
Adelaide College of Divinity (ACD) is an accredited higher education provider offering diploma, associate and bachelor's degrees, graduate diplomas, master and doctoral degrees in ministry, it is also a Registered Training Organisation offer ...
is at
Brooklyn Park.
There are several South Australian
TAFE (Technical and Further Education) campuses in the metropolitan area that provide a range of vocational education and training. The Adelaide College of the Arts, as a school of TAFE SA, provides nationally recognised training in visual and performing arts.
Research
In addition to the universities, Adelaide is home to research institutes, including the
Royal Institution of Australia, established in 2009 as a counterpart to the two-hundred-year-old
Royal Institution of Great Britain. Many of the organisations involved in research tend to be geographically clustered throughout the Adelaide metropolitan area:
* The east end of
North Terrace:
SA Pathology;
Hanson Institute;
National Wine Centre.
* The west end of North Terrace:
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
The South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) is an independent health and medical research institute in Adelaide, South Australia. The institute is housed in a purpose-built eponymous building with its iconic " cheese-grat ...
(SAHMRI), located next to the
Royal Adelaide Hospital
The Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), colloquially known by its initials or pronounced as "the Rah", is South Australia's largest hospital, owned by the state government as part of Australia's public health care system. The RAH provides tertiary hea ...
.
* The
Waite Research Precinct:
SARDI Head Office and Plant Research Centre;
AWRI;
ACPFG;
CSIRO research laboratories.
SARDI also has establishments at
Glenside and
West Beach.
*
Edinburgh, South Australia:
DSTO;
BAE Systems (Australia);
Lockheed Martin Australia Electronic Systems.
*
Technology Park (
Mawson Lakes): BAE Systems;
Optus
Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singte ...
;
Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...
;
Topcon; Lockheed Martin Australia Electronic Systems.
* Research Park at
Thebarton: businesses involved in materials engineering, biotechnology, environmental services, information technology, industrial design, laser/optics technology, health products, engineering services, radar systems, telecommunications and petroleum services.
* Science Park (adjacent to Flinders University): Playford Capital.
* The
Basil Hetzel
Basil Stuart Hetzel (13 June 1922 – 4 February 2017) was an Australian medical researcher who made a major contribution to combating iodine deficiency, a major cause of goitre and cretinism worldwide.
Early life and education
Hetzel was bor ...
Institute for Translational Health Research in
Woodville the research arm of the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide
* The
Joanna Briggs Institute, a global research collaboration for evidence-based healthcare with its headquarters in North Adelaide.
File:Bonython Hall.jpg, The Mitchell Building and Bonython Hall, University of Adelaide
File:Hawke Building, UniSA.jpg, The Hawke Building, part of the UniSA, City West Campus
File:Flinders from hill 3.jpg, Flinders University buildings from the campus hills
File:Torrens Building, Victoria Square.jpg, Torrens University
File:SAHMRI.jpg, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI)
Cultural life
While established as a
British province, and very much English in terms of its culture, Adelaide attracted immigrants from other parts of Europe early on, including German and other European non-conformists escaping religious persecution. The first
German Lutherans arrived in 1838, bringing with them the
vine cuttings
The propagation of grapevines is an important consideration in commercial viticulture and winemaking. Grapevines, most of which belong to the ''Vitis vinifera'' family, produce one crop of fruit each growing season with a limited life span for indi ...
that they used to found the acclaimed wineries of the
Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley (Barossa German: ''Barossa Tal'') is a valley in South Australia located northeast of Adelaide city centre. The valley is formed by the North Para River. It is notable as a major wine-producing region and tourist destina ...
.
The
Royal Adelaide Show
The Royal Adelaide Show is an annual carnival and agricultural show run by the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia. It is held at the Adelaide Showground, a dedicated venue located in Wayville, a suburb of Adelaide, ...
is an annual
agricultural show
An agricultural show is a public event exhibiting the equipment, animals, sports and recreation associated with agriculture and animal husbandry. The largest comprise a livestock show (a judged event or display in which breeding stock is exhibit ...
and
state fair
A state fair is an annual competitive and recreational gathering of a U.S. state's population, usually held in late summer or early fall. It is a larger version of a county fair, often including only exhibits or competitors that have won in th ...
, established in 1839 and now a huge event held in the
Adelaide Showground
The Adelaide Showground holds many of Adelaide's most popular events, including the Royal Adelaide Show.
The Showground (also popularly known as the Wayville Showgrounds) is located in the inner-southern Adelaide suburb of Wayville, just so ...
annually.
Adelaide's arts scene flourished in the 1960s and 1970s with the support of successive premiers from both major political parties. The renowned
Adelaide Festival of Arts was established in 1960 under Thomas Playford, which in the same year spawned an unofficial uncurated series of performances and exhibits which grew into the
Adelaide Fringe. Construction of the
Adelaide Festival Centre began under Steele Hall in 1970 and was completed under the subsequent government of
Don Dunstan
Donald Allan Dunstan (21 September 1926 – 6 February 1999) was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) for th ...
, who also established the
South Australian Film Corporation in 1972 and the
State Opera of South Australia
State Opera South Australia (SOSA) is a professional opera company in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 1976.
History
State Opera South Australia was established in 1976 as a statutory corporation under the ''State Opera of South Aust ...
in 1976.
Over time, the Adelaide Festival expanded to include
Adelaide Writers' Week
Adelaide Writers' Week, known locally as Writers' Week or WW, is a large and mostly free literary festival held annually in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. Considered one of the world's pre-eminent literary events, it forms part of the ...
and
WOMADelaide
WOMADelaide is an annual four-day festival of Music, Arts and Dance, which was first held in 1992 in Botanic Park, Adelaide, South Australia. One of many WOMAD festivals held around the world, it is a four-day event that presents a diverse selec ...
, and other separate festivals were established, such as the
Adelaide Cabaret Festival
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival is an annual arts festival featuring cabaret held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. It has been held in June each year since 2001, with the exception of 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, ...
(2002), the
Adelaide Festival of Ideas
The Adelaide Festival of Ideas (AFOI) is a festival held in Adelaide, South Australia since 1999, usually biennially. It aims to foster the public promulgation, discussion and critique of culturally and socially relevant ideas from around the wo ...
(1999), the
Adelaide Film Festival
The Adelaide Film Festival (AFF, formerly ADLFF) is film festival usually held for two weeks in mid-October in cinemas in Adelaide, South Australia. Originally presented biennially in March from 2003, since 2013 AFF has been held in October ...
(2013),
FEAST
A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes i ...
(1999, a
queer culture
Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures are subcultures and communities composed of people who have shared experiences, backgrounds, or interests due to common sexual or gender identities. Among the first to argue that members of sexual mi ...
),
Tasting Australia (1997, a food and wine affair), and
Illuminate Adelaide
Illuminate Adelaide is an annual winter event held each July in Adelaide, South Australia. It includes free and ticketed events presented by local, national and international artists and companies, encompassing "art, light, sound and imaginatio ...
(2021). With the Festival, the Fringe, WOMADelaide, Writers' Week and the
Adelaide 500
The Adelaide 500 (also known as the VALO Adelaide 500 for sponsorship reasons) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars held on the streets of the east end of Adelaide, South Australia between 1999 to 2020 and again from 2022. It is someti ...
street motor racing event (along with evening music concerts) all happening in early March, the period became known colloquially as "Mad March".
In 2014,
Ghil'ad Zuckermann founded the
Adelaide Language Festival.
There are many international cultural fairs, most notably the German
Schützenfest and Greek
Glendi. Adelaide holds an annual
Christmas pageant, the world's largest
Christmas parade
Santa Claus parades, also called Christmas parades, are parades held in some countries to celebrate the official opening of the Christmas season with the arrival of Santa Claus who always appears in the last float.
The parades usually include them ...
.
North Terrace institutions
As the state capital, Adelaide has a great number of cultural institutions, many of them along the boulevard of
North Terrace. The
Art Gallery of South Australia, with about 35,000 works, holds Australia's second largest state-based collection. Adjacent are the
South Australian Museum
The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultu ...
and
State Library of South Australia. The
Adelaide Botanic Garden
The Adelaide Botanic Garden is a public garden at the north-east corner of the Adelaide city centre, in the Adelaide Park Lands. It encompasses a fenced garden on North Terrace (between Lot Fourteen, the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital ...
,
National Wine Centre and
Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute
The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, usually referred to as Tandanya, is an art museum located on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It specialises in promoting Indigenous Australian art, including visual art, music ...
are nearby in the
East End of the city. In the back of the State Library lies the
Migration Museum
Migration museums cover human migration in the past, present and future.
Background
The current trend in the development of migration museums, named differently worldwide, is an interesting phenomenon, as it may contribute to the creation of a n ...
, Australia's oldest museum of its kind.
Further west, the
Lion Arts Centre is home to
ACE Open, which showcases contemporary art;
Dance Hub SA
Dance Hub SA, formerly Leigh Warren & Dancers or Leigh Warren + Dancers (LWD) and then LWDance Hub, is a contemporary dance company based in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Formed in 1993 by Leigh Warren, the company toured i ...
; and other studios and arts industry spaces. The
Mercury Cinema and the
JamFactory
JamFactory is a not-for-profit arts organisation which includes training facilities, galleries and shops, located in Adelaide city centre, the West End precinct of Adelaide and on the Seppeltsfield (wine), Seppeltsfield Estate in the Barossa Val ...
ceramics and design gallery are just around the corner.
Performing arts and music venues
The Adelaide Festival Centre (which includes the Dunstan Playhouse, Festival Theatre and Space Theatre), on the banks of the Torrens, is the focal point for much of the cultural activity in the city and home to the
State Theatre Company of South Australia
The State Theatre Company of South Australia (STCSA), branded State Theatre Company South Australia, formerly the South Australian Theatre Company (SATC), is South Australia's leading professional theatre company, and a statutory corporation. I ...
. Other live music and theatre venues include the
Adelaide Entertainment Centre
The Adelaide Entertainment Centre (AEC) is an indoor arena located in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. It is used for sporting and entertainment events. It is the principal venue for concerts, events and attractions for audiences bet ...
;
Adelaide Oval;
Memorial Drive Park;
Thebarton Theatre
The Thebarton Theatre, also known as the Thebbie Theatre or simply Thebbie/Thebby, is an entertainment venue located in the inner-western Adelaide suburb of Torrensville, South Australia. Built in 1926 as a combined town hall / picture theatr ...
;
Adelaide Town Hall;
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established t ...
;
Queen's Theatre; Holden Theatres and the Hopgood Theatre.
The
Lion Arts Factory, within the Lion Arts Centre, hosts contemporary music in a wide range of genres, as does "
The Gov" in
Hindmarsh. The city also has numerous smaller theatres, pubs and cabaret bars which host performances.
Live music
In 2015, it was said that there were now more live music venues per capita in Adelaide than any other capital city in the southern hemisphere, ''
Lonely Planet'' labelled Adelaide "Australia's live music city", and the city was recognised as a "
City of Music" by the
UNESCO Creative Cities Network
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) is a project of UNESCO launched in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities which recognized creativity as a major factor in their urban development.[Creamfields
Creamfields is an electronic dance music festival series founded and organised by British club promoter Cream, with its UK edition taking place on August Bank Holiday weekend, with a number of international editions held across various territ ...]
,
Laneway and
Groovin'
"Groovin" is a single released in 1967 by American rock band the Young Rascals that became a number-one hit and one of the group's signature songs. It has been covered by many artists, including the Young Rascals themselves in other languages. ...
.
Adelaide has produced musical groups and individuals who have achieved national and international fame. These include the
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the
Adelaide Youth Orchestra, rock bands
The Angels,
Atlas Genius
Atlas Genius are an alternative rock band formed in Adelaide, South Australia in November 2009. The band's mainstay members are the Jeffery brothers, Keith on lead vocals and lead guitar; Michael on drums; and Darren Sell on keyboard. Their debu ...
,
Cold Chisel
Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes (at the ...
,
The Superjesus,
Wolf & Cub, roots/blues group
The Audreys, internationally acclaimed metal acts
I Killed The Prom Queen and
Double Dragon
is a beat 'em up video game series initially developed by Technōs Japan and released as an arcade game in 1987. The series features twin martial artists, Billy and Jimmy Lee, as they fight against various adversaries and rivals.
The origina ...
, popular Australian hip-hop outfit
Hilltop Hoods
Hilltop Hoods is an Australian hip hop group that formed in 1996 in Blackwood, Adelaide, South Australia. They are regarded as pioneers of the " larrikin-like" style of Australian hip hop. The group was founded by Suffa (Matthew David Lambert ...
, pop acts like
Sia
Sia Kate Isobelle Furler ( ; born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 1997, when Crisp disbanded, she rel ...
,
Orianthi
Orianthi Penny Panagaris (born 22 January 1985), known mononymously as Orianthi, is an Australian guitarist, singer and songwriter who rehearsed in 2009 with Michael Jackson in preparation for his '' This Is It'' concert series, and performed wi ...
,
Guy Sebastian, and
Wes Carr
Wesley Dean "Wes" Carr (born 14 September 1982), also recording as Buffalo Tales, is an Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for winning the sixth season of ''Australian Idol'' in 2008. He released his first studi ...
, as well as internationally successful tribute act, The
Australian Pink Floyd Show.
Noted rocker
Jimmy Barnes
James Dixon "Jimmy" Barnes (née Swan; born 28 April 1956) is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best- ...
(formerly lead vocalist with Cold Chisel) spent most of his youth in the northern suburb of
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
. Paul Kelly grew up in Adelaide and was head prefect at
Rostrevor College. The first ''
Australian Idol'' winner, Guy Sebastian, hails from the north-eastern suburb of
Golden Grove.
Television
Adelaide is served by numerous digital
free-to-air
Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...
television channels:
#
ABC
#
ABC HD (ABC broadcast in
HD)
#
ABC TV Plus
ABC TV Plus (formerly ABC2 and ABC Comedy) is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of general entertainment pr ...
#
ABC Me
ABC Me (stylised as ABC ME) is an Australian English language children's free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was officially launched by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 4 December 2009 as ABC3.
Hist ...
#
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
#
SBS
#
SBS HD (SBS broadcast in
HD)
#
SBS World Movies
SBS World Movies is an Australian free-to-air television channel showing international movies. The channel features foreign language films, documentaries, independent and mainstream cinema and interviews with international movie stars. It w ...
HD
#
SBS Viceland HD
#
SBS Food
#
NITV
National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the half-hourly nightly ''NITV News'' ...
#
SBS WorldWatch
SBS WorldWatch is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The channel shows multilingual international news bulletins in more than 30 languages, as well as two local bulletins i ...
#
Seven
#
7HD (Seven broadcast in HD)
#
7Two
#
7mate
#
7flix
7flix is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, which was launched by the Seven Network on 28 February 2016.
7flix targets a variety of viewers and offers drama, comedy, reality, docusoap, and movies.
History
On 18 Decembe ...
#
Racing.com
#
Nine
9 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
9 or nine may also refer to:
Dates
* AD 9, the ninth year of the AD era
* 9 BC, the ninth year before the AD era
* 9, numerical symbol for the month of September
Places
* Nine, Portugal, a parish in the ...
#
9HD
9HD is an Australian television channel owned by Nine Entertainment, originally launched on 17 March 2008 featuring unique "breakaway" programming until 2009 and a high-definition simulcast of the Nine Network from 2009 to 2010 and again s ...
(Nine broadcast in HD)
#
9Gem
9Gem is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, launched by the Nine Network in September 2010. The channel provides general entertainment and movie programming, from which the original name "GEM" is derived.
History
Nine N ...
#
9Go!
9Go! is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, which was launched by the Nine Network on 9 August 2009, replacing Nine Guide. It is a youthful channel that offers a mix of comedy, reality, general entertainment, movies, ani ...
#
9Life
9Life is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel owned by Nine Entertainment. The channel airs mostly foreign lifestyle and reality programs, with the channel having a licensing agreement with Discovery Inc. (previously Scripp ...
#
9Gem HD
9Gem is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, launched by the Nine Network in September 2010. The channel provides general entertainment and movie programming, from which the original name "GEM" is derived.
History
Nine N ...
#
9Rush
9Rush is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, launched by the Nine Network on 5 April 2020. The channel is a joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd (which also supplies its programming) ...
#
Extra
Extra or Xtra may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Film
* ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film
* ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film
Literature
* ''Extra'' (newspaper), a Brazilian newspaper
* ''Extra!'', an American me ...
#
10
#
10 HD
10 HD is an Australian free-to-air television channel that was originally launched on 16 December 2007 on channel 1. The channel was available to high definition digital television viewers through Network 10 owned-and-operated stations. The ...
(10 broadcast in HD)
#
10 Bold
10 Bold is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel owned by Network 10. It originally launched on 26 March 2009 as One HD with a focus on broadcasting sports-based programming and events, but rebranded to One in April 2011 to ...
#
10 Peach
#
10 Shake
10 Shake is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel owned by Network 10. It launched on 27 September 2020 at 6am.
The channel includes a mix of shows for people aged forty and under. It broadcasts programming for children fr ...
#
TVSN
TVSN (an acronym for "Television Shopping Network") is an Australian and New Zealand broadcast, cable television and satellite television network specializing in home shopping. It is owned by parent company Direct Group Pty Ltd, a home marketi ...
# Gecko TV
#
C44 Adelaide (Adelaide's community TV station)
All of the five Australian national television networks broadcast both
high-definition digital and
standard-definition digital television services in Adelaide. They share three transmission towers on the ridge near the summit of
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia.
The mountain's s ...
. There are two other transmission sites at 25
Grenfell Street
Grenfell Street () is a major street in the north-east quarter of the Adelaide city centre, South Australia. The street runs west-east from King William Street to East Terrace. On the other side of King William Street, it continues as Currie S ...
, Adelaide and
Elizabeth Downs. The two government-funded stations are run by the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
(
ABC South Australia) and the
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The
Seven Network and
Network Ten both own their Adelaide stations (
SAS-7 and
ADS-10 respectively). Adelaide's
NWS-9
NWS is an Australian television station based in Adelaide, Australia. It is owned-and-operated by the Nine Network. The station callsign, ''NWS'', is an initialism of The NeWs South Australia.
History
Origins
NWS-9 was the first television ...
is part of the
Nine Network. Adelaide also has a
community television
Community television is a form of mass media in which a television station is owned, operated or programmed by a community group to provide television programs of local interest known as local programming.
Community television stations are most c ...
station,
Channel 44.
As part of a nationwide phase-out of
analogue television
Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, phase and frequency of an analog s ...
in Australia, Adelaide's analogue television service was shut down on 2 April 2013.
The
Foxtel pay TV service is also available via cable or satellite to the entire metropolitan area.
All the major broadcasting networks also operate online on-demand television services, alongside internet-only services such as
Stan,
Fetch TV,
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
, YouTube,
Disney+, and
Kayo Sports
Kayo Sports is an over-the-top video streaming subscription service available in Australia, owned by Streamotion ( a wholly owned subsidiary of Foxtel). The service offers sports live and on demand from Fox Sports, ESPN, beIN Sports, and Racin ...
.
Radio
There are 20 radio stations that serve the metropolitan area, as well as four stations that serve only parts of the metropolitan area; six commercial stations, six community stations, six national stations and two narrowcast stations.
DAB+ digital radio has been broadcasting in metropolitan Adelaide since 20 May 2009, and currently offers a choice of 41 stations all operated by the existing licensed radio broadcasters, which includes high-quality
simulcast of all AM and FM stations.
Sport
The main sports played professionally in Adelaide are
Australian Rules football, association football (soccer),
cricket,
netball, and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
. Adelaide is the home of two
Australian Football League teams: the
Adelaide Football Club and
Port Adelaide Football Club, and one
A-League soccer team,
Adelaide United
Adelaide United Football Club is a professional soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was founded in 2003 to fil ...
. A local
Australian rules football league, the
SANFL, is made up of 10 teams from around Adelaide. The SANFL has been in operation since 1877 when it began as the South Australian Football Association (SAFL) before changing its name to the SANFL in 1927. The SANFL is the oldest surviving football league of any code played in Australia.
Adelaide has developed a strong culture of attracting crowds to major sporting events. Until the completion of the 2012–14 renovation and upgrade of the
Adelaide Oval, most large sporting events took place at either
Football Park
Football Park, known commercially as AAMI Stadium, was an Australian rules football stadium located in West Lakes, a western suburb of Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, Australia. It was built in 1973 by the South Australian Na ...
(the then home base of the
Adelaide Crows
The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) since ...
, and the then
Port Adelaide home game venue), or the historic
Adelaide Oval, home of the
South Australia Redbacks
The South Australia cricket team, officially named the West End Redbacks, is an Australian men's professional first-class cricket team based in Adelaide, South Australia. The Redbacks play their home matches at Adelaide Oval and are the state c ...
and the
Adelaide Strikers
The Adelaide Strikers are an Australian professional Twenty20 franchise cricket team based in Adelaide, South Australia that compete in the Big Bash League (BBL).Cricket Australia (n.d), Teams and Players, Cricket Australia, accessed 1 Decembe ...
cricket teams. Since completion of the upgrade, home games for Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide now take place at Adelaide Oval.
Since 1884,
Adelaide Oval has also hosted an international cricket test every summer, along with a number of
One Day International cricket matches.
Memorial Drive Park, adjacent to the Adelaide Oval, used to host Davis Cup and other major tennis events, including the Australian Open and the Adelaide International. Adelaide's professional association football team,
Adelaide United
Adelaide United Football Club is a professional soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was founded in 2003 to fil ...
, play in the A-League. Founded in 2003, their home ground is
Hindmarsh Stadium, which has a capacity of 17,000 and is one of the few
purpose-built soccer stadia in Australia. Prior to United's foundation,
Adelaide City
Adelaide City Football Club is a soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club was known historically as Juventus — the original name given to the club by its founders in Adelaide's Italian community.
Adelaide City is one of Aust ...
and
West Adelaide represented the city in the
National Soccer League. The two sides, which contest the
Adelaide derby against one another, now play in the
National Premier Leagues South Australia
The National Premier Leagues South Australia (often abbreviated to NPL South Australia or NPL SA) is a semi-professional football competition in the Australian state of South Australia. The league is a subdivision of the second tier National Pre ...
.
For two years, 1997 and 1998, Adelaide was represented in Australia's top level
rugby league, after the
New South Wales Rugby League
The New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was ...
had played a single game per season at the Adelaide Oval for five years starting in 1991. The
Adelaide Rams were formed and played in the breakaway
Super League (SL) competition in
1997 before moving to the new
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...
in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
. Initially playing at the Adelaide Oval, the club moved to the more suitable Hindmarsh Stadium late in the 1998 season. As part of a peace deal with the
Australian Rugby League
The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARL), formerly the Australian Rugby Football League known as the Australian Rugby League is an Australian rugby league football competition operator. It was founded in 1986 as the Australian Rugby Footbal ...
to end the
Super League war
The Super League war was a commercial competition between the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and the Australian Super League to establish pre-eminence in professional rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-1990s.
Super ...
, the club's owners
News Limited (who were also owners of the SL) suddenly closed the club only weeks before the start of the
1999 season.
Adelaide has two professional basketball teams, the men's team being the
Adelaide 36ers
The Adelaide 36ers, also known as the Sixers, are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL). The 36ers are the only team in the league representing the state of South Australia and are based in th ...
which plays in the
National Basketball League (NBL) and the women's team, the
Adelaide Lightning
The Adelaide Lightning is an Australian professional women's basketball team competing in the Women's National Basketball League ( WNBL). The club is based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. The club was formed in 1993 and they play i ...
which plays in the
Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). Both teams play their home games at the
Titanium Security Arena. Adelaide has a professional
netball team, the
Adelaide Thunderbirds
Adelaide Thunderbirds are an Australian netball team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Since 2017 they have played in Suncorp Super Netball. Between 2008 and 2016, they played in the ANZ Championship and between 1997 and 2007, they pla ...
, which plays in the national netball competition, the
Suncorp Super Netball
Suncorp Super Netball is the top level netball league featuring teams from Australia. In 2017 it replaced the ANZ Championship, which also included teams from New Zealand, as the top level netball league in Australia. Since 2019, the league has ...
championship, with home games played at
Priceline Stadium. The Thunderbirds occasionally play games or finals at the Titanium Security Arena, while international netball matches are usually played at the 10,500 seat Adelaide Entertainment Centre. The Titanium Security Arena has a capacity of 8,000 and is the largest purpose-built basketball stadium in Australia.
Since 1999 Adelaide and its surrounding areas have hosted the
Tour Down Under bicycle race, organised and directed by Adelaide-based
Michael Turtur. Turtur won an
Olympic gold medal for Australia in the
4000 m team pursuit at the
1984 Los Angeles Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...
. The Tour Down Under is the largest cycling event outside Europe and was the first event outside Europe to be granted
UCI ProTour status.
Adelaide maintains a franchise in the
Australian Baseball League
The Australian Baseball League (ABL) is a professional baseball league in Australia. The league is governed by the Australian Baseball Federation (ABF). It uses the same name as a now-defunct competition held during the 1990s, and though it ...
, the
Adelaide Giants
The Adelaide Giants are a professional baseball team that plays in the Australian Baseball League. They are one of the six foundation franchises of the league, in its first incarnation from 1989 to 1999. The team adopted the name Bite or Adelaid ...
. They have been playing since 2009, and their home stadium (until 2016) was
Norwood Oval. From 2016 the team moved to the
Diamond Sports Stadium located near the
Adelaide International Airport
Adelaide Airport , also known as Adelaide International Airport, is the principal airport of Adelaide, South Australia and the fifth-busiest airport in Australia, servicing 8.5 million passengers in the financial year ending 30 June 201 ...
due to renovations at Norwood.
Adelaide also has an ice hockey team,
Adelaide Adrenaline
The Adelaide Adrenaline is a semi-professional ice hockey team based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team is a member of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). The team was founded in 2008 as the Adelaide A's to replace the defunct Adelaide ...
in the
Australian Ice Hockey League
The Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) is Australia's top-level ice hockey league. Established in 2000, the AIHL is sanctioned by Ice Hockey Australia (a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation). The league is run by its own board of ...
(AIHL). It was national champions in 2009 and plays its games at the
IceArenA.
The
Australian Grand Prix for World Championship
Formula One racing was hosted by Adelaide from 1985 to 1995 on the
Adelaide Street Circuit which was laid out in the city's East End as well as the eastern parklands including the
Victoria Park Racecourse.
The Grand Prix became a source of pride, and losing the event to Melbourne in a surprise announcement in mid-1993 left a void that has since been filled with the highly successful
Clipsal 500
The Adelaide 500 (also known as the VALO Adelaide 500 for sponsorship reasons) is an annual motor racing event for Supercars held on the streets of the east end of Adelaide, South Australia between 1999 to 2020 and again from 2022. It is someti ...
for
V8 Supercar racing, held on a modified version of the same street circuit. The Classic Adelaide, a
rally of classic sporting vehicles, is also held in the city and its surrounds.
Adelaide formerly had three horse racing venues.
Victoria Park,
Cheltenham Park Racecourse
Cheltenham Park Racecourse was a horse racing track located in the suburb of Cheltenham in Adelaide, South Australia, between around 1921 and 2008.
History
The Port Adelaide Racing Club began thoroughbred racing at the course and in 1921 th ...
, both of which have now closed, and
Morphettville Racecourse that remains the home of the
South Australian Jockey Club. It also has
Globe Derby Park for
Harness racing that opened in 1969, and by 1973 had become Adelaide's premier harness racing venue taking over from the
Wayville Showgrounds, as well as
Greyhound Park for
greyhound racing that opened in 1972.
The
World Solar Challenge race attracts teams from around the world, most of which are fielded by universities or corporations, although some are fielded by high schools. The race has a 20-years' history spanning nine races, with the inaugural event taking place in 1987. Adelaide hosted the 2012 World Bowls Championships at Lockleys Bowling Club, becoming the third city in the world to have held the championships twice, having previously hosted the event in 1996.
Dirt track speedway is also popular in Adelaide with three operating speedways.
Adelaide Motorsport Park
Speedway City (known as Speedway Park from 1979 to 2001 and Speedway City from 1997 to 2016) is a Dirt track racing venue located 26 km north of Adelaide in Virginia, South Australia, adjacent to the Adelaide International Raceway.
Histo ...
, located adjacent to the
Adelaide International Raceway
The Adelaide International Raceway (also known as Adelaide International or AIR) is a permanent circuit owned by Australian Motorsport Club Limited under the auspices of the Bob Jane Corporation. The circuit is located north of Adelaide in S ...
road racing circuit at
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
( north of the city centre) has been in continuous operation since 1979 after the closure of the popular
Rowley Park Speedway.
Gillman Speedway
Gillman Speedway (sometimes called Gillman Speedway Stadium) is a purpose built, long motorcycle speedway located in the Adelaide suburb of Gillman in South Australia. The track opened in 1998 and runs approximately 13 meetings per season fro ...
located in the semi-industrial suburb of
Gillman, has been in operation since 1998 and caters to
Motorcycle speedway and
Sidecars
A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, making the whole a three-wheeled vehicle. A motorcycle with a sidecar is sometimes called a ''combination'', an ''outfit'', a ''rig'' or a ''hack''.
...
, while the
Sidewinders Speedway located in
Wingfield is also a motorcycle speedway dedicated to Under-16 riders and has been in operation since 1978. In 2016, backed my South Australia's Peregrine Group owners of OTR (On the run service stations and 24/7-hour convenient stores) opened up a multi-purpose facility; a state-of-the-art motorsporting park and a hotel alongside its newer OTR service station outside a small township of
Tailem Bend currently named
The Bend Motorsport Park
The Bend Motorsport Park is a bitumen motor racing circuit at Tailem Bend, South Australia, Australia, about south-east of the state capital, Adelaide.
The complex has a bitumen circuit, drag racing strip, and drift racing circuit.
The rac ...
. Design for thrill seekers and rev-heads the facility currently host South Australia's second V8 Supercars motoring event during a round in August and hopes to bring in other major international motoring events such as
SBK Superbikes and other well established
FIA
FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used.
Fia or FIA may also refer to: People
* Fia Backs ...
motoring events.
Adelaide is home to the
Great Southern Slam, the world's largest
roller derby tournament. The tournament has been held biennially over Australia's Queen's Birthday holiday weekend since 2010. In 2014, and 2016 the tournament featured 45 teams playing in two divisions. In 2018, the tournament has expanded to 48 teams competing in three divisions.
Infrastructure
Transport
Being centrally located on the Australian mainland, Adelaide forms a strategic transport hub for east–west and north–south routes. The city itself has a metropolitan public transport system managed by and known as the
Adelaide Metro
Adelaide Metro is the public transport system of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is an intermodal system offering an integrated network of bus, tram, and train service throughout the metropolitan area. The network has an ann ...
. The Adelaide Metro consists of a contracted bus system including the
O-Bahn Busway
The O-Bahn Busway is a guided busway that is part of the bus rapid transit system servicing the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. The O-Bahn system was conceived by Daimler-Benz to enable buses to avoid traffic congestion by s ...
,
6 commuter rail lines (diesel and electric), and a small tram network operating between inner suburb
Hindmarsh, the city centre, and seaside
Glenelg. Tramways were largely dismantled in the 1950s, but saw a revival in the 2010s with upgrades and extensions.
Road transport in Adelaide has historically been easier than many of the other Australian cities, with a well-defined city layout and wide multiple-lane roads from the beginning of its development. Adelaide was known as a "twenty-minute city", with commuters having been able to travel from metropolitan outskirts to the city proper in roughly twenty minutes. However, such arterial roads often experience traffic congestion as the city grows.
The Adelaide metropolitan area has one freeway and four expressways. In order of construction, they are:
* The
South Eastern Freeway
South Eastern Freeway is a freeway in South Australia (SA). It is a part of the National Highway network linking the state capital cities of Adelaide, SA, and Melbourne, Victoria, and signed as National Highway M1. It carries traffic over t ...
(M1), connects the south-east corner of the Adelaide Plain to the Adelaide Hills and beyond to
Murray Bridge and
Tailem Bend, where it then continues as National Highway 1 south-east to Melbourne.
* The
Southern Expressway (M2), connecting the outer southern suburbs with the inner southern suburbs and the city centre. It duplicates the route of
South Road.
* The
North-South Motorway
''North-South'' ( hy, Հյուսիս-Հարավ) or ''Four Buddies and the Bride'' is an Armenian comedy directed by Davit Babakhanyan and Vazgen Muradyan, starring Diana Malenko, Sona Shahgeldyan and David Tovmasyan. The film was produced by ...
(M2), is an ongoing major project that will become the major north–south corridor, replacing most of what is now
South Road, connecting the
Southern Expressway and the
Northern Expressway via a motorway with no traffic lights. As of 2020 the motorway's northern half is complete (save for a small link under construction at
Croydon Park), connecting the Northern Expressway to Adelaide's inner north-west; the section running through Adelaide's inner west and inner south-west is awaiting funding.
* The
Port River Expressway (A9), connects Port Adelaide and
Outer Harbor to Port Wakefield Road at the northern "entrance" to the metropolitan area.
* The
Northern Expressway (Max Fatchen Expressway) (M2), is the northern suburbs bypass route connecting the Sturt Highway (National Highway 20) via the
Gawler Bypass to Port Wakefield Road at a point a few kilometres north of the Port River Expressway connection.
* The
Northern Connector, completed in 2020, links the North South Motorway to the Northern Expressway.
Airports
The Adelaide metropolitan area has two commercial airports,
Adelaide Airport and
Parafield Airport. Adelaide Airport, in Adelaide's south-western suburbs, serves in excess of 8 million passengers annually.
Parafield Airport, Adelaide's second airport north of the city centre, is used for small aircraft, pilot training and recreational aviation purposes. Parafield Airport served as Adelaide's main aerodrome until the opening of the Adelaide Airport in February 1955. Adelaide airport serves many international and domestic destinations including all Australian state capitals.
Adelaide is also home to a military airport, known as
Edinburgh Airport
Edinburgh Airport is an airport located in the Ingliston area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the busiest airport in Scotland in 2019, handling over 14.7 million passengers. It was also the sixth-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by ...
, located in the northern suburbs. It was built in 1955 in a joint initiative with the UK for weapon development.
Health
Adelaide's two largest hospitals are the
Royal Adelaide Hospital
The Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), colloquially known by its initials or pronounced as "the Rah", is South Australia's largest hospital, owned by the state government as part of Australia's public health care system. The RAH provides tertiary hea ...
(RAH) in the city centre, a
teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Adelaide (800 beds), and the
Flinders Medical Centre
Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) is a major public tertiary hospital and teaching school, co-located with Flinders University and the 130 bed Flinders Private Hospital located at Bedford Park, South Australia. It opened in 1976. It serves as the t ...
(580 beds) in Bedford Park, affiliated with Flinders University. The RAH also operates additional campuses for specialist care throughout the suburbs including the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre (150 beds) in
Northfield and the
Glenside Campus (129 beds) for acute mental health services. Other major public hospitals are the
Women's and Children's Hospital (305 beds), in North Adelaide; the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital (340 beds) in Woodville;
Modbury Hospital
Modbury Hospital is a hospital that provides inpatient, outpatient and emergency services to a population of over 400,000 people living primarily in Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and ...
(178 beds) in Modbury; and the
Lyell McEwin Hospital (198 beds) in Elizabeth. Numerous private hospitals are also located throughout the city, with the largest operators being not-for-profits
Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance (3 hospitals) and
Calvary Care (4 hospitals).
In 2017, the RAH was relocated from the city's
East End to a new AU$2.3 billion facility built over former railyards in the West End. The state-of-the-art hospital forms part of a new biomedical precinct called
BioMed City that collocates the
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
The South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) is an independent health and medical research institute in Adelaide, South Australia. The institute is housed in a purpose-built eponymous building with its iconic " cheese-grat ...
(SAHMRI), the University of Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences building, the University of South Australia's Health Innovation Building, and the state's Dental Hospital. SAHMRI is building a $300 million second facility due to be completed by 2022 to house the
Australian Bragg Centre with Australia's first
proton therapy unit.
There are also plans for the
Women's and Children's Hospital to be relocated to the precinct adjacent the RAH by 2024.
The largest provider of community health care within Adelaide is the not-for-profit
Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS), which provides out of hospital care and hospital avoidance care.
Energy
Adelaide's energy requirements were originally met by the
Adelaide Electric Supply Company
The Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) was the South Australian Government-owned monopoly vertically integrated electricity provider from 1946 until its privatisation in 1999.
Precursors Early days (1882–1900)
Charles Todd, an ea ...
, which was nationalised by the
Playford government in 1946, becoming the
Electricity Trust of South Australia
The Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) was the South Australian Government-owned monopoly vertically integrated electricity provider from 1946 until its privatisation in 1999.
Precursors Early days (1882–1900)
Charles Todd, an ea ...
(ETSA). Despite significant public opposition and the Labor party's anti-privatisation stance which left the Liberal party one vote short of the numbers needed to pass the legislation, ETSA was privatised by the
Olsen Government in 1999 by way of a 200-year lease for the distribution network (ETSA Utilities, later renamed
SA Power Networks
SA Power Networks is the sole electricity distributor in the state of South Australia, delivering electricity from high voltage transmission network connection points operated by ElectraNet. It is the successor to the Electricity Trust of S ...
) and the outright purchase of ETSA Power by the
Cheung Kong Holdings
Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, is a multinational conglomerate, based in Hong Kong. It was one of Hong Kong's leading multi-national conglomerates. The company merged with its subsidiary Hutchison Whampoa on 3 June 2015, as part of a major ...
for $3.5 billion (11 times ETSA's annual earnings) after Labor MP
Trevor Crothers resigned from the party and voted with the government.
The electricity retail market was opened to competition in 2003 and although competition was expected to result in lower retail costs, prices increased by 23.7% in the market's first year. In 2004, the privatisation was deemed to be a failure with consumers paying 60% more for their power and with the state government estimated to lose $3 billion in power generation net income in the first ten years of privatisation. In 2012, the industry came under scrutiny for allegedly reducing supply by shutting down generators during periods of peak demand to force prices up. Increased media attention also revealed that in 2009 the state government had approved a 46% increase in retail prices to cover expected increases in the costs of generation while generation costs had in fact fallen 35% by 2012. South Australia has the highest retail price for electricity in the country.
Privatisation led to competition from a variety of companies who now separately provide for the generation, transmission, distribution and retail sales of gas and electricity. Electricity generation comes from a range of technologies and operators.
ElectraNet
Electranet is a proposed smart electric grid which would allow people to sell electricity into the grid without any artificial caps. It was proposed in an op-ed article Al Gore wrote in a "My Turn" column for ''Newsweek'' in 2006.
Like the inter ...
operates the high-voltage electricity transmission network.
SA Power Networks
SA Power Networks is the sole electricity distributor in the state of South Australia, delivering electricity from high voltage transmission network connection points operated by ElectraNet. It is the successor to the Electricity Trust of S ...
distributes electricity to end users. The largest electricity and gas retailing companies are also the largest generating companies.
The largest fossil fuel power stations are the
Torrens Island Power Station gas-fired plant operated by
AGL Energy and the
Pelican Point Power Station operated by
Engie. South Australia also has wind and solar power and connections to the national grid.
Gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
is supplied from the
Moomba
Moomba (also known as the Moomba Festival) is held annually in Melbourne, Australia. Run by the City of Melbourne, it is Australia's largest free community festival. The Melburnian tradition is celebrated over four days, incorporating the La ...
Gas Processing Plant in the
Cooper Basin
The Cooper Basin is a Permian-Triassic sedimentary geological basin in Australia. The basin is located mainly in the southwestern part of Queensland and extends into northeastern South Australia. It is named after the Cooper Creek which is an ...
via the
Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System and the
SEAGas pipeline from
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
.
In 2011, South Australia generated 18% of its electricity from
wind power, and had 51% of the installed capacity of wind generators in Australia.
Due to almost universal blackouts within the city during September 2016, the state worked with
Tesla to produce the world's largest electricity battery at
Hornsdale Power Reserve
Hornsdale Power Reserve is a 150 MW (194 MWh) grid-connected energy storage system owned by Neoen co-located with the Hornsdale Wind Farm in the Mid North region of South Australia, also owned by Neoen.
The original installation in 2017 was the ...
which has increased that state's electrical security to the extent in which large blackouts are no longer an event.
Water
The provision of water services is by the government-owned
SA Water
SA Water is a government business enterprise wholly owned by the Government of South Australia.
History
SA Water was established by the proclamation of the ''South Australian Water Corporation Act 1994'' on 1 July 1995. Prior to this its predec ...
. Adelaide's water is supplied from its seven reservoirs:
Mount Bold,
Happy Valley,
Myponga,
Millbrook,
Hope Valley,
Little Para and
South Para. The yield from these reservoir catchments can be as little as 10% of the city's requirements (90GL per annum
) in drought years and about 60% in average years. The remaining demand is met by the pumping of water from the
River Murray.
A
sea-water desalination plant capable of supplying 100GL per annum was built during the
2001–2009 drought; however, it operated at about 8% of its capacity until 2019. In December 2018, the State and Federal Governments agreed to fund a $2m study to determine how the plant could be used to reduce reliance on river water, in an effort to help save the Murray River basin and mouth (including the
Coorong) from further ecological damage.
Communications
AdelaideFree WiFi is a citywide free
Wi-Fi network covering most of the inner city areas of Adelaide, primarily the
Adelaide CBD and Northern Adelaide precincts.
It was officially launched at the Adelaide Central Markets on Tuesday 25 June 2014.
It is provided by
Internode,
with infrastructure provided by outdoor
Cisco WiFi N access points attached to the top of lighting poles, as well as inside cafes and businesses across the city.
See also
*
Adelaide city centre
Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ad ...
includes chart of major streets and squares, street widths, and town acres
*
Adelaide Hills
*
City of Adelaide
The City of Adelaide, also known as the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and Adelaide City Council is a local government area in the metropolitan area of greater Adelaide, South Australia and is legally defined as the capital city of South ...
*
Music of Adelaide
Music of Adelaide includes music relating to the city of Adelaide, South Australia. It includes all genres of both live and recorded music by artists born or living in the city, live music events happening in the city, and other aspects of the mu ...
*
Port Adelaide
; Lists
*
Images of Adelaide
*
List of Adelaide obsolete suburb names
*
List of Adelaide parks and gardens
List of Adelaide parks and gardens refers to parks and gardens within the metropolitan area in South Australia known as Adelaide.
Northern Adelaide
The South Australian government region known as Northern Adelaide and which occupies the north ...
*
List of Adelaide railway stations
*
List of Adelaide suburbs
This is a list of the suburbs of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, with their postcodes and local government areas (LGAs). This article does not include suburbs and localities within the Adelaide Hills region.
Adelaide's most expe ...
*
List of films shot in Adelaide
*
List of people from Adelaide
*
List of protected areas in Adelaide
List of protected areas in Adelaide refers to protected areas proclaimed by South Australian government which are located within the Adelaide metropolitan area.
Northern Adelaide
The following protected areas are located within the South ...
*
List of public art in South Australia
*
List of public transport routes in Adelaide
*
List of South Australian commercial icons
*
List of sporting clubs in Adelaide
*
List of tallest buildings in Adelaide
*
Sister cities of the City of Adelaide (the Local government area that governs the city centre)
*
Tourist attractions in South Australia
Notes
References
Further reading
*
* (full text)
*
*
*
External links
Adelaide City Council > Official City GuideAdelaide City CouncilKids in AdelaideRetrieved 12 May 2020.
{{Authority control
1836 establishments in Australia
Australian capital cities
Cities in South Australia
Coastal cities in Australia
Planned capitals
Populated places established in 1836
Metropolitan areas of Australia