Adelaide Park Lands
Coordinates: 34°56′05″S 138°37′00″E / 34.93467°S 138.61670°E
The Adelaide Park Lands are the parks that surround the centre of the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. They measure approximately 7.6 km² in a green belt encircling the city centre.
The parklands were laid out by Colonel William Light in his design for the city. Originally, Light reserved 9.31 km² for parklands, but allocated around 1.53 km² for government purposes. This area has largely been filled with cultural institutions along North Terrace, but further and additional areas have been alienated for railways, cemeteries, sporting facilities and other constructions. The parklands are managed by the Adelaide City Council and, since February 2007, the Adelaide Park Lands Authority.
On 7 November 2008 the Federal Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, announced that the Adelaide Park Lands had been entered in the Australian National Heritage List as "an enduring treasure for the people of South Australia and the nation as a whole".
Adelaide is a planned city, and the Adelaide Park Lands are an integral part of Colonel William Light's 1837 plan. Light chose a site next to the River Torrens, (which runs through the park lands), and planned the city centre on a grid south of the river, with the residential enclave of North Adelaide north of the Torrens on a gentle hill overlooking the river, its flood plain, and the central business district. Influenced by William Penn's design of Philadelphia, Light set out the city of Adelaide on a grid of one square mile, interspaced by wide boulevards and incorporating five large public squares. Light, recognising the importance of public parks, surrounded the entire city with the Adelaide Park Lands, a green-belt and the "lungs of the city".
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