51 Facts About Adelaide

1.

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city of Australia.

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2.

Adelaide is situated on the Adelaide Plains north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, between the Gulf St Vincent in the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east.

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3.

Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide's founding fathers, designed the city centre and chose its location close to the River Torrens.

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4.

Early colonial Adelaide was shaped by the diversity and wealth of its free settlers, in contrast to the convict history of other Australian cities.

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5.

Today, Adelaide is known by its many festivals and sporting events, its food and wine, its coastline and hills, and its large defence and manufacturing sectors.

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6.

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.

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7.

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.

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8.

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.

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9.

Adelaide was Australia's third largest city for most of the 20th century.

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10.

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.

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11.

Adelaide enjoyed a postwar boom, entering a time of relative prosperity.

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12.

The Mannum–Adelaide pipeline brought River Murray water to Adelaide in 1955 and an airport opened at West Beach in 1955.

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13.

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.

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14.

Adelaide is north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges.

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15.

Much of Adelaide was bushland before British settlement, with some variation – sandhills, swamps and marshlands were prevalent around the coast.

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16.

Adelaide is a planned city, designed by the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, Colonel William Light.

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17.

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 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.

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18.

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.

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19.

Similarly, the booming development in Adelaide's South led to the construction of the Southern Expressway.

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20.

Adelaide is a windy city with significant wind chill in winter, which makes the temperature seem colder than it actually is.

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21.

Adelaide was consistently ranked in the world's 10 most liveable cities through the 2010s by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

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22.

In December 2021, Adelaide was named the world's second National Park City, after the state government had lobbied for this title.

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23.

The State Parliament's Capital City Committee is involved in the governance of the City of Adelaide, being primarily concerned with the planning of Adelaide's urban development and growth.

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24.

Adelaide is ageing more rapidly than other Australian capital cities.

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25.

Adelaide has the lowest number of children, who comprised 17.

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26.

Migrants from India and Sri Lanka have settled into inner suburban areas of Adelaide including the inner northern suburbs of Blair Athol, Kilburn and Enfield and the inner southern suburbs of Plympton, Park Holme and Kurralta Park.

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27.

Adelaide was founded on a vision of religious tolerance that attracted a wide variety of religious practitioners.

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28.

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.

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29.

The Adelaide Hills wine region is an iconic and viable economic region for both the state and country in terms of wine production and sale.

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30.

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.

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31.

Adelaide is the birthplace of three Nobel laureates, more than any other Australian city: physicist William Lawrence Bragg 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.

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32.

All schools provide education under the South Australian Certificate of Education or, to a lesser extent, the International Baccalaureate, with Adelaide having the highest number of IB schools in Australia.

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33.

Royal Adelaide Show is an annual agricultural show and state fair, established in 1839 and now a huge event held in the Adelaide Showground annually.

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34.

Adelaide holds an annual Christmas pageant, the world's largest Christmas parade.

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35.

Adelaide has produced musical groups and individuals who have achieved national and international fame.

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36.

Main sports played professionally in Adelaide are Australian Rules football, association football, cricket, netball, and basketball.

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37.

Adelaide has developed a strong culture of attracting crowds to major sporting events.

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38.

Since 1884, Adelaide Oval has hosted an international cricket test every summer, along with a number of One Day International cricket matches.

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39.

Two years, 1997 and 1998, Adelaide was represented in Australia's top level rugby league, after the New South Wales Rugby League had played a single game per season at the Adelaide Oval for five years starting in 1991.

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40.

The Adelaide Rams were formed and played in the breakaway Super League competition in 1997 before moving to the new National Rugby League in 1998.

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41.

Adelaide has a professional netball team, the Adelaide Thunderbirds, which plays in the national netball competition, the Suncorp Super Netball championship, with home games played at Priceline Stadium.

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42.

Adelaide maintains a franchise in the Australian Baseball League, the Adelaide Bite.

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43.

Adelaide has an ice hockey team, Adelaide Adrenaline in the Australian Ice Hockey League .

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44.

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.

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45.

Adelaide is home to the Great Southern Slam, the world's largest roller derby tournament.

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46.

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.

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47.

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.

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48.

Adelaide airport serves many international and domestic destinations including all Australian state capitals.

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49.

Adelaide is home to a military airport, known as Edinburgh Airport, located in the northern suburbs.

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50.

Largest provider of community health care within Adelaide is the not-for-profit Royal District Nursing Service, which provides out of hospital care and hospital avoidance care.

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51.

Adelaide's water is supplied from its seven reservoirs: Mount Bold, Happy Valley, Myponga, Millbrook, Hope Valley, Little Para and South Para.

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