Pooraka is a suburb in

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 ...

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 ...

. It is 12 kilometres north of the central business district.

History

Pooraka was originally a subdivision of section 97 of the

Hundred of Yatala The Hundred of Yatala is a cadastral unit of hundred in South Australia covering much of the Adelaide metropolitan area north of the River Torrens. It is one of the eleven hundreds of the County of Adelaide stretching from the Torrens in the sout ...

, the latter spanning from

Grand Junction Road Grand Junction Road is the longest east–west thoroughfare in the Adelaide metropolitan area, traversing through Adelaide's northern suburbs approximately 8 kilometres north of the Adelaide city centre. Route Travelling from the Port Adelaide r ...

, at

Gepps Cross Gepps Cross (pronounced 'Jepps Cross') is a suburb and major road intersection in the north of Adelaide, South Australia. Gepps Cross is traditionally seen as the end of the inner suburbs and the start of the outer northern suburbs, as it was hom ...

, to a point north of Montague Road. It was originally known as Dry Creek after the local watercourse ( Dry Creek), which is now the name of a modern industrial locality west of Pooraka, at the creek's mouth (

Dry Creek, South Australia Dry Creek is a mostly industrial suburb north of Adelaide, containing significant wetlands. A substantial area was devoted to salt crystallisation pans until 2014, with plans to redevelop the site for housing. This housing plan, first put fo ...

). In 1916, the District Council of Yatala renamed the suburb Pooraka, which was believed to be an indigenous

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 meaning 'dry', however, according to modern expert Robert Amery, the name bears no resemblance to the

words for 'dry' or 'creek'. The term has been identified as a New South Welsh indigenous name for the

turpentine tree Turpentine tree may refer to: * ''Pistacia terebinthus'', native to the Mediterranean region * ''Pistacia atlantica'', native to the Middle East, the Maghreb, the Canary Islands and Southeast Europe * '' Pistacia eurycarpa'', native to West Asia * ' ...

, which is not found in South Australia. Pooraka East Post Office opened on 1 December 1965 and closed in 1986. A railway station on the Northfield railway line (initially known as Abattoirs, but later renamed Pooraka) operated from 1913 until it was closed on 29 May 1987.

References

Suburbs of Adelaide {{Adelaide-geo-stub