Echunga ( ) is a small town in the
Adelaide Hills located south-east of
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
in
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 ...
.
The area was settled by Europeans during the period of
British colonisation of South Australia
British colonisation of South Australia describes the planning and establishment of the colony of South Australia by the British government, covering the period from 1829, when the idea was raised by the then-imprisoned Edward Gibbon Wakefield ...
in 1839, with the town laid out in 1849.
The name of the town was derived from a name takes its name from the
Kaurna
The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...
word ''Ityangga'', meaning "over there"
or "close by".
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
was discovered in 1852 and Echunga became the first proclaimed
goldfield in South Australia. This led to a
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
; however, it did not last long, with the
diggings
The Diggings was a colloquial term for the gold rush locations in Australia and the United States beginning in the 1850s. Gold miners - the diggers - would describe their journey "to the diggings" and say they were "at (or on) the diggings." Be ...
exhausted and all but abandoned within a year. Subsequent discoveries in 1853 and 1854 led to smaller and equally short-lived rushes. In 1868 more gold was discovered at nearby
Jupiter Creek, which proved to be a much larger and long-lived field.
For a brief time Echunga prospered and it has been estimated that at its peak it had grown to a population in excess of 1,200.
Echunga is part of Battunga Country.
References
Mining towns in South Australia
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