History of Adelaide

The Kaurna people occupied the Tandanya region before disrupted by British settlers. The European surveyor General Colonel William Light founded the site in 1836. The site was well-drained, had fertile soil and straddled the Torrens River, which guaranteed a ready water supply. Adelaide was then named after Queen Adelaide, wife of the British King William IV. Within twenty years, many Kaurna people had died from illnesses and diseases introduced by the settlers.
By November 1837 there were some 2,500 free settlers in the new colony, and by May 1841 nearly 15,000. Adelaide's early economy started to get on its feet in 1838 with the arrival of livestock from New South Wales and Tasmania.
A wheat boom in the 1870s and 80s set off a building boom, and a lot of the ancient buildings still line the city streets. Rapid expansion also took place during WWI, the 1920s and the busy post-WWII years as more migrants arrived from Europe.