The Adelaide Park Lands were a WORLD FIRST and they are also a WORLD'S ONLY – totally unique.

World’s First

They are a world's first because they were the first planned PUBLIC park. In the 1830's Parks were something that belonged to royalty, the nobility, to lords of the manor. They were not available (by right) to labourers or the working class. They were allowed to enter such parks only when they were invited onto them.

Remember how long ago this was: In 1837, the USA still had slavery. Slavery had been outlawed in the British Empire only four years earlier, in 1833 and was still being phased out. Women did not have the vote anywhere in the world, and would not get it in Britain for another 90 years. At that time in Britain, anyone who was not Church of England faced real legal discrimination in employment.

In decades prior, the Industrial Revolution had seen people migrate from the countryside into dirty, crowded cities, often living in cramped tiny workers’ cottages with little to no greenery nearby.

In this climate, social reformers of the 1830's in London were promoting a radical idea – that it would be good for the working classes to have access to nature. Before trying it out in the UK, they said, it might be tried first in a new colony, on the other side of the world. Colonel Light read those pamphlets and agreed it was a good idea. After your Adelaide Park Lands were set up in 1837, the world's next planned public Park came 10 years later, in 1847, Birkenhead Park at Merseyside in England.

World’s only

And of course it's not just any Park. It's a huge one. Adelaide is the only city in the world built INSIDE a Park. It’s not a loop or circle – it’s a figure 8 wrapping around the city & North Adelaide.

It's been arbitrarily divided up into 30 Parks and 6 squares. Each of them has a name, but each one is merely a section (like one jigsaw puzzle piece) of a single treasure – the garland of the entire Adelaide Park Lands.

The Park Lands are so big that each of our regular Guided Walks focuses upon just one part of the Park Lands at a time.

The Adelaide Park Lands are more than twice as big as Central Park in New York – about four times larger than Centennial Park in Sydney. They are almost double the size of King's Park in Perth.

But their area of about 700 hectares is dwindling, especially in the middle part of the 'Figure 8 ' that wraps around the city. A lot of former Park Land between the City and North Adelaide has been built over; especially along North Terrace.

Many people don't even realise that the Park Lands are under threat.  They look around and see the 700 hectares or so that remain.   Yes, what remains is crucially important to protect, but too few people can visualise the Park Lands that were lost last century, last decade, or even last month. 

Once a site is lost, people tend to forget that it was ever part of the Park Lands.  And so it goes, year after year. 

We are continually obliged to focus on the current battles to protect the next potential loss.  But our catalogue of Park Lands losses over the years emphasises that every generation loses a bit more. 

That’s why we invite you to Explore, why we invite you to be Inspired, why we invite you to help us Protect, and to Restore.

That’s why we need you to Take Action. Join us today.