Adelaideਐਡੀਲੇਡ

Adelaide is the capital of South Australia and Australia's fifth most populous city, a planned city on the Adelaide Plains between Gulf St Vincent and the Mount Lofty Ranges, with 1,387,290 people in Greater Adelaide in the 2021 census. Its Punjabi community is younger and faster growing than most in this series: 18,743 people used Punjabi at home in Greater Adelaide in 2021, and in the city's north Punjabi was the most used language other than English.

Where is Adelaide, and why do Punjabis live there?

Adelaide stands on the River Torrens, known to the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of the Adelaide Plains, as Karrawirra Pari, and the city centre's Kaurna name is Tarndanya. The city was founded on 28 December 1836 as the planned capital of a freely settled British colony, named in honour of Queen Adelaide, and laid out by Colonel William Light in a grid of wide boulevards and large public squares ringed by park lands. The metropolitan area runs from Gawler in the north to Sellicks Beach in the south, between the gulf coast and the foothills. Long known as the City of Churches for its diversity of faiths, Adelaide built its name on wheat, wool, wine and manufacturing, and today it is South Australia's government, commercial and festival centre.

Punjabis came to South Australia in small numbers in the early years, as hawkers, farm workers and, around the Riverland, fruit growers, and Sikhs were photographed visiting Adelaide as early as 1922. The settled community is mostly a product of the decades after migration opened up: the Sikh Society of South Australia was formed in 1978 by a handful of families, and the modern community has grown with skilled migration, international students and family reunion, drawn by a smaller, more affordable capital with work in health, trades, transport and services. Adelaide is the southern stop in this series' map of Punjabi places in Australia, after Melbourne, Perth and Woolgoolga.

What do the numbers say?

Greater Adelaide counted 1,387,290 people in the 2021 census, with a median age of 39. Punjabi was used at home by 18,743 of them, 1.4 per cent, the fifth most used language other than English after Mandarin at 31,056, Italian at 22,644, Vietnamese at 21,362 and Greek at 20,511. Across South Australia as a whole, 20,004 people used Punjabi at home, more than double the 9,309 counted in 2016, so almost every Punjabi speaker in the state lives in Greater Adelaide. India was the city's second largest overseas country of birth after England, with 42,933 residents, 3.1 per cent of Greater Adelaide, born in India.

For religion, the Greater Adelaide QuickStats opened for this entry publish the largest affiliations only, and Sikhism does not appear among them, so no citywide Sikh total is invented here. Across South Australia, census based tables counted 17,259 Sikhs in 2021, 0.97 per cent of the state, the second highest share of any Australian state after Victoria. The growth matches the language figures: South Australia's Sikh count roughly doubled between 2016 and 2021.

The north: where Punjabi Adelaide lives

The community's centre of gravity is the northern suburbs. In the Adelaide North region, which takes in Salisbury, Playford and Gawler, Punjabi was used at home by 9,115 people, 2.0 per cent, making it the most used language other than English in the north, ahead of Vietnamese and Mandarin. The same region counted 18,882 residents born in India, 4.1 per cent of its population, the highest share of any Adelaide region. Around the northern growth suburbs, Punjabi shops, services and family networks have followed the newer housing, while longer established families remain spread across the western and inner suburbs closer to the older temples.

Gurdwaras and the Sikh Society of South Australia

The Sikh Society of South Australia was formed in 1978, when a handful of Sikh families in the state joined together with a shared desire for parkash, the public reading of the Guru Granth Sahib. The society opened the state's first gurdwara in April 1988 in the suburb of Enfield, and its temple today is the Glen Osmond Gurdwara at 10 Mount Barker Road in Glen Osmond, south east of the city centre. The gurdwara opens daily, holds its main Sunday programme in the morning followed by guru ka langar, and runs a Punjabi School where children and adults learn Punjabi after the Sunday services. The society also runs welfare and cultural activities, from vaisakhi and diwali nights to sports days, that hold a small community together across a wide city. Newer gurdwaras have since opened in the northern and western suburbs as the community has grown and spread, following the same pattern as the bigger Australian cities: the temple first, then the neighbourhood around it.

Adelaide is Australia's planned southern capital, the City of Churches turned festival city, and its Punjabi community is one of the fastest growing in the country: a language count that more than doubled in five years, a heartland in the northern suburbs, and a Sikh society that has carried the community since 1978. For the full map, see Punjabi places in Australia.