Parnaroo is a rural locality 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 ...
, situated east of
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
. It shares the same boundaries as the cadastral Hundred of Parnaroo, which was established on 31 October 1878. It was reportedly named for an Aboriginal word meaning "rain of little stones", which had been taken from a sheep run opened in the area in 1854.
The modern locality was formalised in August 2000, and named for the long established local name.
Originally the land 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, it was the site of a small settlement in the early days of British colonisation of the State, but the settlement never developed and is now in ruin. Farmers at Parnaroo reported major challenges in the 1880s due to the landscape and low rainfall, being north of
Goyder's Line
Goyder's Line is a line that runs roughly east–west across South Australia and, in effect, joins places with an average annual rainfall of . North of Goyder's Line, annual rainfall is usually too low to support cropping, with the land being sui ...
.
Parnaroo School operated from 1890 to 1930, while Parnaroo South School operated from 1895 until 1911.
Parnaroo Post Office opened on 27 July 1871 and closed on 30 November 1916.
The land is now private pastoral land.
The
2016 Australian census
The 2016 Australian census was the 17th national population census held in Australia. The census was officially conducted with effect on Tuesday, 9 August 2016. The total population of the Commonwealth of Australia was counted as – an incre ...
which was conducted in August 2016 reports that Parnaroo had no people living within its boundaries.
References
External links
Place Names of South Australia - P
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