Australian Natural Resources Atlas

Natural Resource Topics

Agriculture - Statistics - South Australia

South Australia

Introduction

South Australia is Australia's third largest state covering an area of 984,000 sq km. It has a 3,700 km of coastline and comprises 12.81% of the total area of Australia. The state is approximately 1,201 km from east to west and approximately 1,139 km from north to south. The southern most point is Cape Northumberland. It has a temperate climate, with hot and dry summers and brief rainy winters.

South Australia is a land of generally low relief, the inland area being largely covered by featureless plains, or sand and gibber deserts. Approximately 50% of the State is less than 150 metres above sea level and over 80% is less than 300 m. Kangaroo Island is the predominant island off the South Australian coastline. There are, however, around 100 islands in all, relatively few of which are utilised. The most important mountains are the Mount Lofty-Flinders Ranges system. The River Murray enters the sea in South Australia and is the State's only major river.

On the 15th of August, 1834, the South Australian Colonisation Act was assented to.

The territory allotted under the Act embraced 802,508 sq km, with the western boundary the 132nd meridian of east longitude and the other boundaries virtually as they are today. The colony was to be opened to settlement by British subjects, but under no condition were convicts to be admitted, making South Australia the only State to be settled entirely by free persons.

The first migrants landed at Kangaroo Island on the 27th of July, 1836, and in November of that year, the Surveyor-General, Colonel William Light, arrived to survey the present site of Adelaide. On the 28th of December, 1836, the colony of South Australia was proclaimed at Glenelg by Captain John Hindmarsh.

There are 248 National Parks and Reserves in South Australia, most of them in the remote wilderness. The Flinders Ranges National Park has a total area of 80,265 sq km and is one of Australia's major national parks.

The figures reported here are a subset of the Agricultural Census data from 1982/1983 to 1996/1997 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, AgStats). The data has been analysed by the Bureau of Rural Sciences using a consistent geographic base. Further information about the data is available from the Australian Spatial Data Directory

Select one of the following Statistical Divisions to view information for that region:

The figures and text are reproduced with permission of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, © Commonwealth of Australia, 2000.

Statistics

Area of region (ha): 98,383,981.78

Area

Agroforestry

Apples

Berry Fruit

Cattle and Calves

Cereals excluding Rice

Citrus

Grapes

Legumes

Non-Cereal Forage Crops

Nuts

Oilseeds

Other Livestock

Other Non-Cereal Crops

Other Vegetables

Pastures

Pears

Pigs

Plantation Fruit

Potatoes

Poultry

Sales of Livestock

Sheep and Lambs

Stone Fruit

Further information

Please Note: Not all the selected data items are available for every year or for every statistical region.

The figures reported here are a subset of the Agricultural Census data from 1982/1983 to 1996/1997 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, AgStats). The data have been analysed by Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia to report them using a consistent geographic base. Further information about the data is available through the Australian Spatial Data Directory.

The subset includes 436 data items for plant production and 40 data items for livestock which were commonly available in the AgStats database over the 15 year period and each year for respondents having an Estimated Value of Agricultural Operations (EVAO) above the cut-off of $22,500.

The data have been concorded by bringing data collected using different geographies to a consistent geographic base, being Version 2.6 Statistical Local Area (SLA) boundaries (ABS, 1996) and using the non-agricultural lands mask from the National Land and Water Resources Audit's National Landuse Map (1996/1997).

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