British colony on Australia's south-central coast, founded 28 December 1836 as a planned free-settler province under the Wakefield 'systematic colonization' scheme — unlike its neighbours, never a penal colony; administered the Northern Territory from 1863 to 1911.
Federated into the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901 as the State of South Australia.
Recent standard scholarly history of the colony/state from its 1836 founding to the present.