Apoinga is a rural locality in the Mid North region of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, situated in the Regional Council of Goyder. The area was originally the territory of the

Ngadjuri The Ngadjuri people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands lie in the mid north of South Australia with a territory extending from Gawler in the south to Orroroo in the Flinders Ranges in the north. Name Their ethnon ...

people. The cadastral

Hundred of Apoinga County of Burra is a cadastral unit located in the Australian state of South Australia which covers land located in the state’s east associated with the town of Burra. It was proclaimed in 1851 by Governor Young and named after the town of ...

was proclaimed on 7 August 1851 by Governor Henry Young. It is believed to be a corruption of "appinga", a name of a local Aboriginal tribe. The hundred had its own local government, the District Council of Apoinga, from 1873 to 1932; however, the council seat was at Logan Gap. The Apoinga Lutheran Church opened on 10 July 1936 in the former Apoinga School, but the congregation relocated to the Black Springs Church (a former Anglican church) in 1963. The modern locality was established in August 2000, when boundaries were formalised for the "long established local name". A portion of Apoinga was severed and added to Emu Downs on 20 August 2015 to resolve an access problem. The locality is much smaller than the cadastral hundred, consisting of a north–south strip along part of the hundred's western border. The historic former Apoinga Hotel and the Apoinga Smelter Site (the former Penny's Smelting Works) on Tothill Belt Road are listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

. The smelter was established at Apoinga in 1848 by Messrs Penny and Owen. Until then, ore from the copper mines at Burra was transported to

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...

and shipped to

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

for smelting. Establishing smelters in Australia could reduce the cost of producing copper ingots. There was no supply of coal known in South Australia to fuel a smelter. Penny believed he had a process of smelting ore using a smelter fueled by charcoal made from the abundant timber supplies in the area. Apoinga was on the road from Burra to Adelaide. The smelter produced its first copper in January 1849, but had closed by 1852 as the miners moved to the Victorian gold rush.

References

{{authority control Towns in South Australia Mid North (South Australia)