Coober Pedy in Australia, opal capital of the world

14 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture Reading Time:  9 minutes

Coober Pedy opal at the South Australian Museum © Bahudhara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Coober Pedy opal at the South Australian Museum © Bahudhara/cc-by-sa-3.0

Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia, 846 km (526 mi) north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the “opal capital of the world” because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. Coober Pedy is renowned for its below-ground dwellings, called “dugouts“, which are built in this fashion due to the scorching daytime heat. The name “Coober Pedy” is thought to derive from the Aboriginal term kupa-piti, which means “whitefellas’ hole”, but in 1975 the local Aboriginal people of the town adopted the name Umoona, which means “long life” and is also their name for the mulga tree. In the 2016 Australian census, there were 1,762 people in Coober Pedy.   read more…

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