Aboriginal people were the first to adapt to the harsh environment of central and southern Australia, long before Dutchman François Thyssen sighted the southern coast in 1627. The Dutch were not interested in the region and was not pursued until 1802 when Matthew Flinders circumnavigated the continent. Although small settlements were established along the coast by sealers from Kangaroo Island and by escaped convicts from Tasmania from about 1804, it wasn't until 1836 that European settlers began permanent settlement in the area. Unlike other parts of the continent, South Australia was never a penal colony. The population increased rapidly during the mid-1800s as disappointed gold miners from Victoria and New South Wales migrated to South Australia to raise sheep and grow wheat.

Little was known about the interior of South Australia and it wasn't until Charles Sturt made his epic voyage down the Murray River to its mouth, that discoveries were made about the land and farming possibilities.

Sometime during the 1930s plans were made for free settlement within the state based on the theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

South Australia became a state in 1901 and detached form the Northern Territory in 1911.

[AUSTRALIA] - [NSW] - [NT] - [QLD] - [SA] - [TAS] - [VIC] - [WA]