Why Almost Nobody Lives in South Australia

📍 Free map of Australia's 25 emptiest places + the Field Files guides: https://theemptycontinent.com South Australia is nearly twice the size of France, yet almost eight in ten of its people live in one city. Beyond a thin green strip around Adelaide, the state turns into salt lakes, red gibber plains and land that was deliberately kept empty. So why does almost nobody live in South Australia? The rain shadow behind Adelaide, the earthquake under the city, Wilpena Pound, the hills that named a chapter of Earth's history, salt lakes that almost never fill, Paralana's radioactive springs, Adelaide drinking the sea, the world's largest cattle station, the Woomera rocket range, Maralinga, and the volcano under Mount Gambier. The Field Files: 150 of Australia's emptiest places, outposts and survivors, as digital PDF guides (plus a free map): https://theemptycontinent.com Chapters: 0:00 Nearly twice the size of France 0:33 The short answer: rain 1:52 The broken ground 2:51 The quake under Adelaide 3:29 Wilpena Pound 4:13 Where complex life began 5:12 Lakes without water 6:05 Paralana's radioactive springs 6:51 The river that arrives exhausted 8:11 Drinking the sea 8:41 A colony with no convicts 9:35 The Woomera rocket range 10:29 Maralinga 11:32 The youngest volcanoes 12:15 So why is it empty? -- Sources: ABS (Census 2021, land use); SA Water; Bureau of Meteorology; Government of South Australia (Department for Energy and Mining, Geological Survey; Department for Environment and Water; Primary Industries and Regions SA); Geoscience Australia; Department of Defence (Woomera Prohibited Area); DLR / JAXA (Hayabusa2); National Museum of Australia; Murray-Darling Basin research via The Conversation; Australian Government Department of Agriculture; NIT; State Heritage survey (Paralana). -- #Australia #SouthAustralia #Outback -- Credits Satellite imagery: Sentinel-2 cloudless (s2maps.eu) by EOX IT Services GmbH, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016, CC BY 4.0. CC-licensed photos via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and graded): Ardash Muradian (CC BY-SA 2.0); Binky68 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Briggsy66 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Cathcartw (CC BY-SA 4.0); Citronnel (CC BY-SA 4.0); cprevot (CC BY-SA 3.0); Dicklyon (CC BY 4.0); Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0); DXR (CC BY-SA 4.0); Faj2323 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hullwarren (CC BY-SA 3.0); Joy Engelman (CC BY-SA 3.0); Lasse B. (CC BY-SA 2.0); Masahiro miyasaka (CC BY-SA 4.0); Mundoo (CC BY-SA 4.0); Murray Foubister (CC BY-SA 2.0); Peripitus (CC BY-SA 3.0); Roo72 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Sklewis51 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tangerineduel (CC BY-SA 4.0); Vmenkov (CC BY-SA 3.0); Yu Chu Chin (CC BY-SA 4.0).