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Adelaide was established as a planned colony of free immigrants, promising civil liberties and freedom from religious persecution, based upon the ideas of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Wakefield had read accounts of Australian settlement while in prison in London for attempting to abduct an heiress, and realised that the eastern colonies suffered from a lack of available labour, due to the practice of giving land grants to all arrivals. Wakefield's idea was for the Government to survey and sell the land at a rate that would maintain land values high enough to be unaffordable for labourers and journeymen. Funds raised from the sale of land were to be used to bring out working-class emigrants, who would have to work hard for the monied settlers to ever afford their own land. As a result of this policy, Adelaide does not share the convict settlement history of other Australian cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart.
As it was believed that in a colony of free settlers there would be little crime, no provision was made for a gaol in Colonel Light's 1837 plan. But by mid-1837 the "South Australian Register" was warning of escaped convicts from New South Wales and tenders for a temporary gaol were sought. Following a burglary, a murder, and two attempted murders in Adelaide during March 1838, Governor Hindmarsh created the South Australian Police Force (now the South Australia Police) in April 1838 under 21-year-old Henry Inman. The first sheriff, Samuel Smart, was wounded during a robbery, and on 2 May 1838 one of the offenders, Michael Magee, became the first person to be hanged in South Australia. William Baker Ashton was appointed governor of the temporary gaol in 1839, and in 1840 George Strickland Kingston was commissioned to design Adelaide's new gaol. Construction of Adelaide Gaol commenced in 1841.
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Adelaide's early history was marked by economic uncertainty and questionable leadership. The first governor of South Australia, John Hindmarsh, clashed frequently with others, in particular the Resident Commissioner, James Hurtle Fisher. The rural area surrounding Adelaide was surveyed by Light in preparation to sell a total of over of land. Adelaide's early economy started to get on its feet in 1838 with the arrival of livestock from Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. Wool production provided an early basis for the South Australian economy. By 1860, wheat farms had been established from Encounter Bay in the south to Clare in the north.
George Gawler took over from Hindmarsh in late 1838 and, despite being under orders from the "Select Committee on South Australia" in Britain not to undertake any public works, promptly oversaw construction of a governor's house, the Adelaide Gaol, police barracks, a hospital, a customs house and a wharf at Port Adelaide. Gawler was recalled and replaced by George Edward Grey in 1841. Grey slashed public expenditure against heavy opposition, although its impact was negligible at this point: silver was discovered in Glen Osmond that year, agriculture was well underway, and other mines sprung up all over the state, aiding Adelaide's commercial development. The city exported meat, wool, wine, fruit and wheat by the time Grey left in 1845, contrasting with a low point in 1842 when one-third of Adelaide houses were abandoned.
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Trade links with the rest of the Australian states were established after the Murray River was successfully navigated in 1853 by Francis Cadell, an Adelaide resident. South Australia became a self-governing colony in 1856 with the ratification of a new constitution by the British parliament. Secret ballots were introduced, and a bicameral parliament was elected on 9 March 1857, by which time 109,917 people lived in the province.
In 1860, the Thorndon Park reservoir was opened, providing an alternative water source to the now turbid River Torrens. Gas street lighting was implemented in 1867, the University of Adelaide was founded in 1874, the South Australian Art Gallery opened in 1881 and the Happy Valley Reservoir opened in 1896. In the 1890s Australia was affected by a severe economic depression, ending a hectic era of land booms and tumultuous expansionism. Financial institutions in Melbourne and banks in Sydney closed. The national fertility rate fell and immigration was reduced to a trickle.
The value of South Australia's exports nearly halved. Drought and poor harvests from 1884 compounded the problems, with some families leaving for Western Australia. Adelaide was not as badly hit as the larger gold-rush cities of Sydney and Melbourne, and silver and lead discoveries at Broken Hill provided some relief. Only one year of deficit was recorded, but the price paid was retrenchments and lean public spending. Wine and copper were the only industries not to suffer a downturn.
20th century.
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Adelaide was Australia's third largest city for most of the 20th century. Electric street lighting was introduced in 1900 and electric trams were transporting passengers in 1909. 28,000 men were sent to fight in World War I. Historian F. K. Crowley examined the reports of visitors in the early 20th century, noting that "many visitors to Adelaide admired the foresighted planning of its founders", as well as pondering the riches of the young city.
Adelaide enjoyed a postwar boom, entering a time of relative prosperity. Its population grew, and it became the third most populous metropolitan area in the country, after Sydney and Melbourne. Its prosperity was short-lived, with the return of droughts and the Great Depression of the 1930s. It later returned to fortune under strong government leadership. Secondary industries helped reduce the state's dependence on primary industries. World War II brought industrial stimulus and diversification to Adelaide under the Playford Government, which advocated Adelaide as a safe place for manufacturing due to its less vulnerable location. Shipbuilding was expanded at the nearby port of Whyalla.
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The South Australian Government in this period built on former wartime manufacturing industries but neglected cultural facilities which meant South Australia's economy lagged behind. International manufacturers like Holden and Chrysler made use of these factories around the Adelaide area in suburbs like Elizabeth, completing its transformation from an agricultural service centre to a 20th-century motor city. The Mannum–Adelaide pipeline brought River Murray water to Adelaide in 1955 and an airport opened at West Beach in 1955. Flinders University and the Flinders Medical Centre were established in the 1960s at Bedford Park, south of the city. Today, Flinders Medical Centre is one of the largest teaching hospitals in South Australia. In the post-war years around the early 1960s, Adelaide was surpassed by Brisbane as Australia's third largest city.
The Dunstan Governments of the 1970s saw something of an Adelaide "cultural revival", establishing a wide array of social reforms. The city became noted for its progressivism as South Australia became the first Australian state or territory to decriminalise homosexuality between consenting adults in 1975. Adelaide became a centre for the arts, building upon the biennial "Adelaide Festival of Arts" that commenced in 1960. The State Bank collapsed in 1991 during an economic recession. The effects lasted until 2004, when Standard & Poor's reinstated South Australia's AAA credit rating. Adelaide's tallest building, completed in 2020, is called the Adelaidean and is located at 11 Frome Street.
21st century.
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In the early years of the 21st century, a significant increase in the state government's spending on Adelaide's infrastructure occurred. The Rann government invested A$535 million in a major upgrade of the Adelaide Oval to enable Australian Football League to be played in the city centre and more than A$2 billion to build a new Royal Adelaide Hospital on land adjacent to the Adelaide Railway Station. The Glenelg tramline was extended through the city to Hindmarsh down to East Terrace and the suburban railway line extended south to Seaford.
Following a period of stagnation in the 1990s and 2000s, Adelaide began several major developments and redevelopments. The Adelaide Convention Centre was redeveloped and expanded at a cost of A$350 million beginning in 2012. Three historic buildings were adapted for modern use: the Torrens Building in Victoria Square as the Adelaide campus for Carnegie Mellon University, University College London, and Torrens University; the Stock Exchange building as the Science Exchange of the Royal Institution Australia; and the Glenside Psychiatric Hospital as the Adelaide Studios of the SA Film Corporation. The government invested more than A$2 billion to build a desalination plant, powered by renewable energy, as an "insurance policy" against droughts affecting Adelaide's water supply. The Adelaide Festival, Fringe, and Womadelaide became annual events.
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Geography.
Adelaide is north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the relatively low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges (Mount Lofty, the highest point, is 710 metres above sea level). The city stretches from the coast to the foothills, and from Gawler at its northern extent to Sellicks Beach in the south. According to Regional Development Australia, an Australian government planning initiative, the "Adelaide Metropolitan Region" has a total land area of , while a more expansive definition by the Australian Bureau of Statistics defines a "Greater Adelaide" statistical area totalling . The city sits at an average elevation of above sea level. Mount Lofty, east of the Adelaide metropolitan region in the Adelaide Hills at an elevation of , is the tallest point of the city and in the state south of Burra. The city borders the Temperate Grassland of South Australia in the east, an endangered vegetation community.
Much of Adelaide was bushland before British settlement, with some variation – sandhills, swamps and marshlands were prevalent around the coast. The loss of the sandhills to urban development had a particularly destructive effect on the coastline due to erosion. Where practical, the government has implemented programs to rebuild and vegetate sandhills at several of Adelaide's beachside suburbs. Tennyson Dunes is the largest contiguous, tertiary dune system contained entirely within Metropolitan Adelaide, providing refuge for a variety of remnant species formerly found along the entire coastline. Much of the original vegetation has been cleared with what is left to be found in reserves such as the Cleland National Park and Belair National Park. A number of creeks and rivers flow through the Adelaide region. The largest are the Torrens and Onkaparinga catchments. Adelaide relies on its many reservoirs for water supply with the Happy Valley Reservoir supplying around 40% and the much larger Mount Bold Reservoir 10% of Adelaide's domestic requirements respectively.
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Geology.
Adelaide and its surrounding area is one of the most seismically active regions in Australia. On 1 March 1954 at 3:40 am Adelaide experienced its largest recorded earthquake to date, with the epicentre 12 km from the city centre at Darlington, and a reported magnitude of 5.6. There have been smaller earthquakes in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2022.
The uplands of the Adelaide Hills, part of the southern Mount Lofty Ranges to the east of Adelaide, are defined on their western side by a number of arcuate faults (the Para, Eden, Clarendon and Willunga Faults), and consist of rocks such as siltstone, dolomite and quartzite, dating from the Neoproterozoic to the middle Cambrian, laid down in the Adelaide Rift Complex, the oldest part of the Adelaide Superbasin.
Most of the Adelaide metropolitan area lies in the downthrown St Vincent Basin and its embayments, including the Adelaide Plains Sub-basin, and the Golden Grove, Noarlunga and Willunga Embayments. These basins contain deposits of Tertiary marine and non-marine sands and limestones, which form important aquifers. These deposits are overlain by Quaternary alluvial fans and piedmont slope deposits, derived from erosion of the uplands, consisting of sands, clays and gravels, interfingering to the west with transgressive Pleistocene to Holocene marine sands and coastal sediments of the shoreline of Gulf St Vincent.
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Urban layout.
Adelaide is a planned city, designed by the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, Colonel William Light. His plan, sometimes referred to as "Light's Vision" (also the name of a statue of him on Montefiore Hill), arranged Adelaide in a grid, with in the Adelaide city centre and a ring of parks, known as the Adelaide Parklands, surrounding it. Light's selection of the location for the city was initially unpopular with the early settlers, as well as South Australia's first governor, John Hindmarsh, due to its distance from the harbour at Port Adelaide, and the lack of fresh water there.
Light successfully persisted with his choice of location against this initial opposition. Recent evidence suggests that Light worked closely with George Kingston as well as a team of men to set out Adelaide, using various templates for city plans going back to Ancient Greece, including Italian Renaissance designs and the similar layouts of the American cities Philadelphia and Savannah–which, like Adelaide, follow the same layout of a central city square, four complementing city squares surrounding it and a parklands area that surrounds the city centre.
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The benefits of Light's design are numerous: Adelaide has had wide multi-lane roads from its beginning, an easily navigable cardinal direction grid layout and an expansive green ring around the city centre. There are two sets of ring roads in Adelaide that have resulted from the original design. The inner ring route (A21) borders the parklands, and the outer route (A3/A13/A16/A17) completely bypasses the inner city via (in clockwise order) Grand Junction Road, Hampstead Road, Ascot Avenue, Portrush Road, Cross Road and South Road.
Suburban expansion has to some extent outgrown Light's original plan. Numerous former outlying villages and "country towns", as well as the satellite city of Elizabeth, have been enveloped by its suburban sprawl. Expanding developments in the Adelaide Hills region led to the construction of the South Eastern Freeway to cope with growth, which has subsequently led to new developments and further improvements to that transport corridor. Similarly, the booming development in Adelaide's South led to the construction of the Southern Expressway.
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New roads are not the only transport infrastructure developed to cope with the urban growth. The O-Bahn Busway is an example of a unique solution to Tea Tree Gully's transport woes in the 1980s. The development of the nearby suburb of Golden Grove in the late 1980s followed a planned approach to urban growth.
In the 1960s, a Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study Plan was proposed to cater for the future growth of the city. The plan involved the construction of freeways, expressways and the upgrade of certain aspects of the public transport system. The then premier Steele Hall approved many parts of the plan and the government went as far as purchasing land for the project. The later Labor government elected under Don Dunstan shelved the plan, but allowed the purchased land to remain vacant, should the future need for freeways arise. In 1980, the Liberal party won government and premier David Tonkin committed his government to selling off the land acquired for the MATS plan, ensuring that even when needs changed, the construction of most MATS-proposed freeways would be impractical. Some parts of this land have been used for transport, (e.g. the O-Bahn Busway and Southern Expressway), while most has been progressively subdivided for residential use.
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In 2008, the SA Government announced plans for a network of transport-oriented developments across the Adelaide metropolitan area and purchased a 10 hectare industrial site at Bowden for $52.5 million as the first of these developments.
Housing.
Historically, Adelaide's suburban residential areas have been characterised by single-storey detached houses built on blocks. A relative lack of suitable, locally-available timber for construction purposes led to the early development of a brick-making industry, as well as the use of stone, for houses and other buildings. By 1891, 68% of houses were built of stone, 15% of timber, and 10% of brick, with brick also being widely used in stone houses for quoins, door and window surrounds, and chimneys and fireplaces.
There is a wide variety in the styles of these houses. Until the 1960s, most of the more substantial houses were built of red brick, though many front walls were of ornamental stone. Then cream bricks became fashionable, and in the 1970s, deep red and brown bricks became popular. Until the 1970s, roofs tended to be clad with (painted) corrugated iron or cement or clay tiles, usually red "terracotta". Since then, Colorbond corrugated steel has dominated. Most roofs are pitched. Flat roofs are not common.
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Up to the 1970s, most houses were of "double brick" construction on concrete footings, with timber floors laid on joists supported by "dwarf walls". Later houses have mainly been of "brick veneer" construction – structural timber or, more recently, lightweight steel frame on a concrete slab foundation, lined with Gyprock, and with an outer skin of brickwork, to cope with Adelaide's reactive soils, particularly Keswick Clay, black earth and some red-brown earth soils. The use of precast concrete panels for floor and wall construction has also increased. In addition to this, a significant factor in Adelaide's suburban history is the role of the South Australian Housing Trust.
Climate.
Adelaide has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ("Csa") under the Köppen climate classification. The city has hot, dry summers and cool winters with moderate rainfall. Most precipitation falls in the winter months, leading to the suggestion that the climate be classified as a "cold monsoon". Rainfall is unreliable, light and infrequent throughout summer, although heavy falls can occur. The winter has fairly reliable rainfall with June being the wettest month of the year, averaging around 80 mm. Frosts are occasional, with the most notable occurrences in 1908 and 1982. Hail may occur in winter.
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Adelaide is a windy city with significant wind chill in winter, which makes the temperature seem colder than it actually is. Snowfall in the metropolitan area is extremely rare, although light and sporadic falls in the nearby hills and at Mount Lofty occur during winter. Dewpoints in the summer typically range from . There are usually several days in summer where the temperature reaches or above.
While conditions vary from year-to-year, a warming trend has been increasing in recent years, and with drought conditions experienced in SA in 2024−25, Adelaide has had to rely on desalination to augment its water supply.
Temperature extremes range from −0.4 °C (31.4 °F), 8 June 1982 to 47.7 °C (117.9 °F), 24 January 2019. The city features 90.6 clear days annually.
The average sea temperature ranges from in August to in February.
Liveability.
Adelaide was consistently ranked in the world's 10 most liveable cities through the 2010s by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
In June 2021, "The Economist" ranked Adelaide the third most liveable city in the world, behind Auckland and Osaka. In June 2023, Adelaide was ranked the twelfth most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
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In December 2021, Adelaide was named the world's second National Park City, after the state government had lobbied for this title.
It was ranked the most liveable city in Australia by the Property Council of Australia, based on surveys of residents' views of their own city, between 2010 and 2013, dropping to second place in 2014.
Governance.
Adelaide, as the capital of South Australia, is the seat of the Government of South Australia. The bicameral Parliament of South Australia consists of the lower house known as the House of Assembly and the upper house known as the Legislative Council. General elections are held every four years, the last being the 2022 South Australian state election.
As Adelaide is South Australia's capital and most populous city, the State Government co-operates extensively with the City of Adelaide. In 2006, the Ministry for the City of Adelaide was created to facilitate the State Government's collaboration with the Adelaide City Council and the Lord Mayor to improve Adelaide's image. The State Parliament's Capital City Committee is also involved in the governance of the City of Adelaide, being primarily concerned with the planning of Adelaide's urban development and growth.
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Reflecting South Australia's status as Australia's most centralised state, Adelaide elects a substantial majority of the South Australian House of Assembly. Of the 47 seats in the chamber, 34 seats (three-quarters of the legislature) are based in Adelaide, and two rural seats include Adelaide suburbs.
Local governments.
The Adelaide metropolitan area is divided between nineteen local government areas. At its centre, the City of Adelaide administers the Adelaide city centre, North Adelaide, and the surrounding Adelaide Parklands. It is the oldest municipal authority in Australia and was established in 1840, when Adelaide and Australia's first mayor, James Hurtle Fisher, was elected. From 1919 onwards, the city has had a Lord Mayor, the current being Lord Mayor "The Right Honourable" Jane Lomax-Smith.
Demography.
Adelaide's inhabitants are known as Adelaideans.
Compared with Australia's other state capitals, Adelaide is growing at a rate similar to Sydney and Hobart (see List of cities in Australia by population). In 2024, it had a metropolitan population (including suburbs) of 1,469,163, making it Australia's fifth-largest city. 77% of the population of South Australia are residents of the Adelaide metropolitan area, making South Australia one of the most centralised states.
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Major areas of population growth in recent years have been in outer suburbs such as Mawson Lakes and Golden Grove. Adelaide's inhabitants occupy 366,912 houses, 57,695 semi-detached, row terrace or town houses and 49,413 flats, units or apartments.
About one sixth (17.1%) of the population had university qualifications. The number of Adelaideans with vocational qualifications (such as tradespersons) fell from 62.1% of the labour force in the 1991 census to 52.4% in the 2001 census.
Adelaide is ageing more rapidly than other Australian capital cities. More than a quarter (27.5%) of Adelaide's population is aged 55 years or older, in comparison to the national average of 25.6%. Adelaide has the lowest number of children (under-15-year-olds), who comprised 17.7% of the population, compared to the national average of 19.3%.
Ancestry and immigration.
At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:
Overseas-born Adelaideans composed 31.3% of the total population at the 2021 census. The five largest groups of overseas-born were from England (5.7%), India (3.1%), Mainland China (1.8%), Vietnam (1.2%) and Italy (1.1%).
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Suburbs including Newton, Payneham and Campbelltown in the east and Torrensville, West Lakes and Fulham to the west, have large Greek and Italian communities. The Italian consulate is located in the western suburb of Hindmarsh. Large Vietnamese populations are settled in the north-western suburbs of Woodville, Kilkenny, Pennington, Mansfield Park and Athol Park and also Parafield Gardens and Pooraka in Adelaide's north. Migrants from India and Sri Lanka have settled into inner suburban areas of Adelaide including the inner northern suburbs of Blair Athol, Kilburn and Enfield and the inner southern suburbs of Plympton, Park Holme and Kurralta Park.
Suburbs such as Para Hills, Salisbury, Ingle Farm and Blair Athol in the north and Findon, West Croydon and Seaton and other Western suburbs have sizeable Afghan communities. Chinese migrants favour settling in the eastern and north eastern suburbs including Kensington Gardens, Greenacres, Modbury and Golden Grove. Mawson Lakes has a large international student population, due to its proximity to the University of South Australia campus.
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At the 2021 census, 1.7% of Adelaide's population identified as being Indigenous — Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.
Language.
At the 2016 census, 75.4% of the population spoke English at home. The other languages most commonly spoken at home were Italian (2.1%), Standard Mandarin (2.1%), Greek (1.7%) Vietnamese (1.4%), and Cantonese (0.7%). The Kaurna language, spoken by the area's original inhabitants, had no living speakers in the middle of the 20th century, but since the 1990s there has been a sustained revival effort from academics and Kaurna elders.
Religion.
Adelaide was founded on a vision of religious tolerance that attracted a wide variety of religious practitioners. This led to it being known as "The City of Churches". But approximately 28% of the population expressed no religious affiliation in the 2011 Census, compared with the national average of 22.3%, making Adelaide one of Australia's least religious cities. According to 2021 census, 39.8% population of Adelaide identifies as Christian, with the largest denominations being Catholic (16.4%), Anglican (7.0%), Uniting Church (3.9%) and Greek Orthodox (2.4%). Non-Christian faith communities representing 9.5% from Adelaide's population, includes Islam (2.8%), Hinduism (2.7%) and Buddhism (2.3%).
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The Jewish community of the city dates back to 1840. Eight years later, 58 Jews lived in the city. A synagogue was built in 1871, when 435 Jews lived in the city. Many took part in the city councils, such as Judah Moss Solomon (1852–66). Three Jews have been elected to the position of city mayor. In 1968, the Jewish population of Adelaide numbered about 1,200; in 2001, according to the Australian census, 979 persons declared themselves to be Jewish by religion. In 2011, over 1,000 Jews were living in the city, served by an Orthodox synagogue, Adelaide Hebrew Congregation and a Reform synagogue, Beit Shalom, in addition to a virtual Jewish museum. Massada College, a Jewish day school opened in the city in 1976 and closed in 2011. The Adelaide Holocaust Museum and Andrew Steiner Education Centre opened in 2020.
The "Afghan" community in Australia first became established in the 1860s when camels and their Pathan, Punjabi, Baluchi and Sindhi handlers began to be used to open up settlement in the continent's arid interior. Until eventually superseded by the advent of the railways and motor vehicles, camels played an invaluable economic and social role in transporting heavy loads of goods to and from isolated settlements and mines. This is acknowledged by the name of The Ghan, the passenger train operating between Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Darwin. The Central Adelaide Mosque is regarded as Australia's oldest permanent mosque; an earlier mosque at Marree in northern South Australia, dating from 1861 to 1862 and subsequently abandoned or demolished, has now been rebuilt.
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Economy.
South Australia's largest employment sectors are health care and social assistance, surpassing manufacturing in SA as the largest employer since 2006–07. In 2009–10, manufacturing in SA had average annual employment of 83,700 persons compared with 103,300 for health care and social assistance. Health care and social assistance represented nearly 13% of the state average annual employment. The Adelaide Hills wine region is an iconic and viable economic region for both the state and country in terms of wine production and sale. The 2014 vintage is reported as consisting of red grapes crushed valued at A$8,196,142 and white grapes crushed valued at $14,777,631.
The retail trade is the second largest employer in SA (2009–10), with over 91,900 jobs, and 12 per cent of the state workforce.
Manufacturing, defence technology, high-tech electronic systems and research, commodity export and corresponding service industries all play a role in the SA economy. Almost half of all cars produced in Australia were made in Adelaide at the Holden Elizabeth Plant in Elizabeth. The site ceased operating in November 2017.
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The collapse of the State Bank in 1992 resulted in large levels of state public debt (as much as A$4 billion). The collapse meant that successive governments enacted lean budgets, cutting spending, which was a setback to the further economic development of the city and state. The debt has more recently been reduced with the State Government once again receiving a AAA+ Credit Rating.
The global media conglomerate News Corporation was founded in, and until 2004 incorporated in, Adelaide and it is still considered its "spiritual" home by its founder, Rupert Murdoch. Australia's largest oil company, Santos, prominent South Australian brewery, Coopers, and national retailer Harris Scarfe also call Adelaide their home.
In 2018, at which time more than 80 organisations employed 800 people in the space sector in South Australia, Adelaide was chosen for the headquarters of a new Australian Space Agency. The agency opened its in 2020. It is working to triple the size of the Australian space industry and create 20,000 new jobs by 2030.
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Defence industry.
Adelaide is home to a large proportion of Australia's defence industries, which contribute over A$1 billion to South Australia's Gross State Product. The principal government military research institution, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, and other defence technology organisations such as BAE Systems Australia and Lockheed Martin Australia, are north of Salisbury and west of Elizabeth in an area now called "Edinburgh Parks", adjacent to RAAF Base Edinburgh.
Others, such as Saab Systems and Raytheon, are in or near Technology Park. ASC Pty Ltd, is based in the industrial suburb of Osborne and is also a part of Technology Park. South Australia was charged with constructing Australia's s and more recently the A$6 billion contract to construct the Royal Australian Navy's new air-warfare destroyers.
Employment statistics.
, Greater Adelaide had an unemployment rate of 7.4% with a youth unemployment rate of 15%.
The median weekly individual income for people aged 15 years and over was $447 per week in 2006, compared with $466 nationally. The median family income was $1,137 per week, compared with $1,171 nationally. Adelaide's housing and living costs are substantially lower than that of other Australian cities, with housing being notably cheaper. The median Adelaide house price is half that of Sydney and two-thirds that of Melbourne. The three-month trend unemployment rate to March 2007 was 6.2%. The Northern suburbs' unemployment rate is disproportionately higher than the other regions of Adelaide at 8.3%, while the East and South are lower than the Adelaide average at 4.9% and 5.0% respectively.
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House prices.
Over the decade March 2001 – March 2010, Metropolitan Adelaide median house prices approximately tripled. (approx. 285% – approx. 11%p.a. compounding)
In the five years March 2007 – March 2012, prices increased by approx. 27% – approx. 5%p.a. compounding. March 2012 – March 2017 saw a further increase of 19% – approx. 3.5%p.a. compounding.
In summary:
Each quarter, The Alternative and Direct Investment Securities Association (ADISA) publishes a list of median house sale prices by suburb and Local Government Area. (Previously, this was done by REISA) Due to the small sizes of many of Adelaide's suburbs, the low volumes of sales in these suburbs, and (over time) the huge variations in the numbers of sales in a suburb in a quarter, statistical analysis of "the most expensive suburb" is unreliable; the suburbs appearing in the "top 10 most expensive suburbs this quarter" list is constantly varying. Quarterly Reports for the last two years can be found on the REISA website.
Education and research.
Education forms an increasingly important part of the city's economy, with the South Australian Government and educational institutions attempting to position Adelaide as "Australia's education hub" and marketing it as a "Learning City". The number of international students studying in Adelaide has increased rapidly in recent years to 30,726 in 2015, of which 1,824 were secondary school students.
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Adelaide is the birthplace of three Nobel laureates, more than any other Australian city: physicist William Lawrence Bragg and pathologists Howard Florey and Robin Warren, all of whom completed secondary and tertiary education at St Peter's College and the University of Adelaide.
Adelaide is also the hometown of mathematician Terence Tao.
Primary and secondary education.
There are two systems of primary and secondary schools, a public system operated by the South Australian Government's Department for Education, and a private system of independent and Catholic schools. South Australian schools provide education under the Australian Curriculum for reception to Year 10 students. In Years 10 to 12, students study for the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). They have the option of incorporating vocational education and training (VET) courses or a flexible learning option (FLO). South Australia also has 24 schools that use International Baccalaureate programs as an alternative to the Australian Curriculum or SACE. These programs include the IB Primary Years Programme, the IB Middle Years Programme, and the IB Diploma Programme.
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For South Australian students who cannot attend a traditional school, including students who live in rural or remote areas, the state government runs the Open Access College (OAC), which provides virtual teaching. The OAC has a campus in Marden which caters to students from reception to Year 12 and adults who haven't been able to complete their SACE. Guardians are also able to apply for their child to be educated from home as long as they provide an education program which meets the same requirements as the Australian Curriculum as well as opportunities for social interaction.
Tertiary education.
There are three public universities local to Adelaide, as well as one private university and three constituent colleges of foreign universities. Flinders University of South Australia, the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and Torrens University Australia—part of the Laureate International Universities are based in Adelaide. The University of Adelaide was ranked in the top 150 universities worldwide. Flinders ranked in the top 250 and Uni SA in the top 300. Torrens University Australia is part of an international network of over 70 higher education institutions in more than 30 countries worldwide.
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The University of Adelaide, with 25,000 students, is Australia's third-oldest university and a member of the leading "Group of Eight". It has five campuses throughout the state, including two in the city-centre, and a campus in Singapore. The University of South Australia, with 37,000 students, has two North Terrace campuses, three other campuses in the metropolitan area and campuses in the regional cities of Whyalla and Mount Gambier. The University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia have had multiple proposals to merge into a single university. A proposal in 2018 failed due to uncertainty as to the new name and leadership of the merged university. In 2022, the universities announced a new merger proposal, with the name and leadership issues settled and support from the South Australian government.
Flinders University, with 25,184 students, is based in the southern suburb of Bedford Park, alongside the Flinders Medical Centre, with additional campuses in neighbouring Tonsley and in Victoria Square in the city centre.
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In 2024, the University of the Sunshine Coast opened a new campus in Adelaide where undergraduate and master's courses in ICT and business are offered.
The Adelaide College of Divinity is at Brooklyn Park.
There are several South Australian TAFE (Technical and Further Education) campuses in the metropolitan area that provide a range of vocational education and training. The Adelaide College of the Arts, as a school of TAFE SA, provides nationally recognised training in visual and performing arts.
StudyAdelaide, a collaboration between the South Australian government and the tertiary education sector, maintains an on-line list of schools, universities, and higher education institutions in SA.
Research.
In addition to the universities, Adelaide is home to research institutes, including the Royal Institution of Australia, established in 2009 as a counterpart to the two-hundred-year-old Royal Institution of Great Britain. Many of the organisations involved in research tend to be geographically clustered throughout the Adelaide metropolitan area:
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Cultural life.
While established as a British province, and very much English in terms of its culture, Adelaide attracted immigrants from other parts of Europe early on, including German and other European non-conformists escaping religious persecution. The first German Lutherans arrived in 1838, bringing with them the vine cuttings that they used to found the acclaimed wineries of the Barossa Valley.
The Royal Adelaide Show is an annual agricultural show and state fair, established in 1839 and now a huge event held in the Adelaide Showground annually.
Adelaide's arts scene flourished in the 1960s and 1970s with the support of successive premiers from both major political parties. The renowned Adelaide Festival of Arts was established in 1960 under Thomas Playford, which in the same year spawned an unofficial uncurated series of performances and exhibits which grew into the Adelaide Fringe. Construction of the Adelaide Festival Centre began under Steele Hall in 1970 and was completed under the subsequent government of Don Dunstan, who also established the South Australian Film Corporation in 1972 and the State Opera of South Australia in 1976.
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Over time, the Adelaide Festival expanded to include Adelaide Writers' Week and WOMADelaide, and other separate festivals were established, such as the Adelaide Cabaret Festival (2002), the Adelaide Festival of Ideas (1999), the Adelaide Film Festival (2013), FEAST (1999, a queer culture), Tasting Australia (1997, a food and wine affair), and Illuminate Adelaide (2021). With the Festival, the Fringe, WOMADelaide, Writers' Week and the Adelaide 500 street motor racing event (along with evening music concerts) all happening in early March, the period became known colloquially as "Mad March".
In 2014, Ghil'ad Zuckermann founded the Adelaide Language Festival.
There are many international cultural fairs, most notably the German Schützenfest and Greek Glendi. Adelaide holds an annual Christmas pageant, the world's largest Christmas parade.
North Terrace institutions.
As the state capital, Adelaide has a great number of cultural institutions, many of them along the boulevard of North Terrace. The Art Gallery of South Australia, with about 35,000 works, holds Australia's second largest state-based collection. Adjacent are the South Australian Museum and State Library of South Australia. The Adelaide Botanic Garden, National Wine Centre and Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute are nearby in the East End of the city. In the back of the State Library lies the Migration Museum, Australia's oldest museum of its kind.
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Further west, the Lion Arts Centre is home to ACE Open, which showcases contemporary art; Dance Hub SA; and other studios and arts industry spaces. The Mercury Cinema and the JamFactory ceramics and design gallery are just around the corner.
Performing arts venues.
The Adelaide Festival Centre (which includes the Dunstan Playhouse, Festival Theatre and Space Theatre), on the banks of the Torrens, is the focal point for much of the cultural activity in the city and home to the State Theatre Company of South Australia. Other live music and theatre venues include the Adelaide Entertainment Centre; Adelaide Oval; Memorial Drive Park; Thebarton Theatre; Adelaide Town Hall; Her Majesty's Theatre; Queen's Theatre; Holden Street Theatres; and the Hopgood Theatre.
The Lion Arts Factory, within the Lion Arts Centre, hosts contemporary music in a wide range of genres, as does "The Gov" in Hindmarsh. The city also has numerous smaller theatres, pubs and cabaret bars which host performances.
Music.
In 2015, it was said that there were now more live music venues per capita in Adelaide than any other capital city in the southern hemisphere, "Lonely Planet" labelled Adelaide "Australia's live music city", and the city was recognised as a "City of Music" by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Although there were many pubs hosting live music in the CBD in past, the number has slowly diminished. The Grace Emily on Waymouth Street, which was refurbished as a live music venue around 2000, is popular with musicians and patrons alike. The Crown & Anchor ("the Cranker") was saved from demolition in 2024 after a vigorous campaign by the public as well as many musicians and politicians. New legislation passed on 11 September 2024 designates the entire Adelaide CBD as a "live music venue area", and gives protection to selected live music venues.
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In addition to its own WOMAD (WOMADelaide), Adelaide has attracted several touring music festivals, including Creamfields, Laneway, and Groovin' (some since defunct).
Adelaide has produced musical groups and individuals who have achieved national and international fame. These include the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Youth Orchestra, rock bands The Angels, Atlas Genius, Cold Chisel, The Superjesus, Wolf & Cub, roots/blues group The Audreys, internationally acclaimed metal acts I Killed The Prom Queen and Double Dragon, popular Australian hip-hop outfit Hilltop Hoods, as well as pop acts like Sia, Orianthi, Guy Sebastian, and Wes Carr, and the internationally successful tribute act, The Australian Pink Floyd Show.
Noted rocker Jimmy Barnes (formerly lead vocalist with Cold Chisel) spent most of his youth in the northern suburb of Elizabeth. Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly grew up in Adelaide and was head prefect at Rostrevor College. The first "Australian Idol" winner, Guy Sebastian, hails from the north-eastern suburb of Golden Grove.
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Television.
Adelaide is served by numerous digital free-to-air television channels:
All of the five Australian national television networks broadcast both high-definition digital and standard-definition digital television services in Adelaide. They share three transmission towers on the ridge near the summit of Mount Lofty. There are two other transmission sites at 25 Grenfell Street, Adelaide and Elizabeth Downs. The two government-funded stations are run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC South Australia) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The Seven Network and Network Ten both own their Adelaide stations (SAS-7 and ADS-10 respectively). Adelaide's NWS-9 is part of the Nine Network. Adelaide also has a community television station, Channel 44.
As part of a nationwide phase-out of analogue television in Australia, Adelaide's analogue television service was shut down on 2 April 2013.
The Foxtel pay TV service is also available via cable or satellite to the entire metropolitan area.
All the major broadcasting networks also operate online on-demand television services, alongside internet-only services such as Stan, Fetch TV, Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, and Kayo Sports.
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Radio.
There are 20 radio stations that serve the metropolitan area, as well as four stations that serve only parts of the metropolitan area; six commercial stations, six community stations, six national stations and two narrowcast stations.
DAB+ digital radio has been broadcasting in metropolitan Adelaide since 20 May 2009, and currently offers a choice of 41 stations all operated by the existing licensed radio broadcasters, which includes high-quality simulcast of all AM and FM stations.
Sport.
The main sports played professionally in Adelaide are Australian Rules football, soccer, cricket, netball, and basketball. Adelaide is the home of two Australian Football League teams: the Adelaide Football Club and Port Adelaide Football Club, and one A-League soccer team, Adelaide United. A local Australian rules football league, the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), is made up of 10 teams from around Adelaide. The SANFL has been in operation since 1877 when it began as the South Australian Football Association (SAFA) before changing its name to the SANFL in 1927. The SANFL is the oldest surviving football league of any code played in Australia.
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Adelaide has developed a strong culture of attracting crowds to major sporting events. Until the completion of the 2012–14 renovation and upgrade of the Adelaide Oval, most large sporting events took place at either Football Park (the then home base of the Adelaide Crows, and the then Port Adelaide home game venue), or the historic Adelaide Oval, home of the South Australia Redbacks and the Adelaide Strikers cricket teams. Since completion of the upgrade, home games for Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide now take place at Adelaide Oval.
Since 1884, Adelaide Oval has also hosted an international cricket test every summer, along with a number of One Day International cricket matches. Memorial Drive Park, adjacent to the Adelaide Oval, used to host Davis Cup and other major tennis events, including the Australian Open and the Adelaide International. Adelaide's professional association football team, Adelaide United, play in the A-League. Founded in 2003, their home ground is Coopers Stadium, which has a capacity of 16,500 and is one of the few purpose-built soccer stadia in Australia. Prior to United's foundation, Adelaide City and West Adelaide represented the city in the National Soccer League. The two sides, which contest the Adelaide derby against one another, now play in the National Premier Leagues South Australia.
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For two years, 1997 and 1998, Adelaide was represented in Australia's top level rugby league, after the New South Wales Rugby League had played a single game per season at the Adelaide Oval for five years starting in 1991. The Adelaide Rams were formed and played in the breakaway Super League (SL) competition in 1997 before moving to the new National Rugby League in 1998. Initially playing at the Adelaide Oval, the club moved to the more suitable Hindmarsh Stadium late in the 1998 season. As part of a peace deal with the Australian Rugby League to end the Super League war, the club's owners News Limited (who were also owners of the SL) suddenly closed the club only weeks before the start of the 1999 season.
Adelaide has two professional basketball teams, the men's team being the Adelaide 36ers which plays in the National Basketball League (NBL) and the women's team, the Adelaide Lightning which plays in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). The Adelaide 36ers play at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre while the Adelaide Lightning play at the Adelaide Arena (Previously Titanium Security Arena). Adelaide has a professional netball team, the Adelaide Thunderbirds, which plays in the national netball competition, the Suncorp Super Netball championship, with home games played at Netball SA Stadium. The Thunderbirds occasionally play games or finals at the Titanium Security Arena, while international netball matches are usually played at the 10,500 seat Adelaide Entertainment Centre. The Titanium Security Arena has a capacity of 8,000 and is the largest purpose-built basketball stadium in Australia.
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Since 1999 Adelaide and its surrounding areas have hosted the Tour Down Under bicycle race, organised and directed by Adelaide-based Michael Turtur. Turtur won an Olympic gold medal for Australia in the 4000 m team pursuit at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The Tour Down Under is the largest cycling event outside Europe and was the first event outside Europe to be granted UCI ProTour status.
The 2024 Women's Tour Down Under cycle stage race was held in and around Adelaide, South Australia from 12 to 14 January 2024
Adelaide maintains a franchise in the Australian Baseball League, the Adelaide Giants. They have been playing since 2009, and their home stadium (until 2016) was Norwood Oval. From 2016 the team moved to the Diamond Sports Stadium located near the Adelaide International Airport due to renovations at Norwood.
Adelaide also has an ice hockey team, Adelaide Adrenaline in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). It was national champions in 2009 and plays its games at the IceArenA.
The Australian Grand Prix for World Championship Formula One racing was hosted by Adelaide from 1985 to 1995 on the Adelaide Street Circuit which was laid out in the city's East End as well as the eastern parklands including the Victoria Park Racecourse. The Grand Prix became a source of pride, and losing the event to Melbourne in a surprise announcement in mid-1993 left a void that has since been filled with the Adelaide 500 for V8 Supercar racing, held on a modified version of the same street circuit. The Classic Adelaide, a rally of classic sporting vehicles, is also held in the city and its surrounds.
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Adelaide formerly had three horse racing venues. Victoria Park, Cheltenham Park Racecourse, both of which have now closed, and Morphettville Racecourse that remains the home of the South Australian Jockey Club. It also has Globe Derby Park for Harness racing that opened in 1969, and by 1973 had become Adelaide's premier harness racing venue taking over from the Wayville Showgrounds, as well as Greyhound Park for greyhound racing that opened in 1972.
The World Solar Challenge race attracts teams from around the world, most of which are fielded by universities or corporations, although some are fielded by high schools. The race has a 20-years' history spanning nine races, with the inaugural event taking place in 1987. Adelaide hosted the 2012 World Bowls Championships at Lockleys Bowling Club, becoming the third city in the world to have held the championships twice, having previously hosted the event in 1996.
Dirt track speedway is also popular in Adelaide with three operating speedways. Adelaide Motorsport Park, located adjacent to the Adelaide International Raceway road racing circuit at Virginia ( north of the city centre) has been in continuous operation since 1979 after the closure of the popular Rowley Park Speedway. Gillman Speedway located in the semi-industrial suburb of Gillman, has been in operation since 1998 and caters to Motorcycle speedway and Sidecars, while the Sidewinders Speedway located in Wingfield is also a motorcycle speedway dedicated to Under-16 riders and has been in operation since 1978.
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In 2016, backed by South Australia's Peregrine Corporation opened up a multi-purpose facility; a state-of-the-art motorsporting park and a hotel alongside its newer OTR service station outside a small township of Tailem Bend currently named The Bend Motorsport Park. Design for thrill seekers and rev-heads the facility currently host South Australia's second Supercars motoring event during a round in August.
Adelaide is home to the Great Southern Slam, the world's largest roller derby tournament. The tournament has been held biennially over Australia's Queen's Birthday holiday weekend since 2010. In 2014, and 2016 the tournament featured 45 teams playing in two divisions. In 2018, the tournament has expanded to 48 teams competing in three divisions.
Infrastructure.
Transport.
Being centrally located on the Australian mainland, Adelaide forms a strategic transport hub for east–west and north–south routes. The city itself has a metropolitan public transport system managed by and known as the Adelaide Metro. The Adelaide Metro consists of a contracted bus system including the O-Bahn Busway, 7 commuter rail lines (diesel and electric), and a small tram network operating between inner suburb Hindmarsh, the city centre, and seaside Glenelg. Tramways were largely dismantled in the 1950s, but saw a revival in the 2010s with upgrades and extensions.
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Road transport in Adelaide has historically been easier than many of the other Australian cities, with a well-defined city layout and wide multiple-lane roads from the beginning of its development. Adelaide was known as a "twenty-minute city", with commuters having been able to travel from metropolitan outskirts to the city proper in roughly twenty minutes. However, such arterial roads often experience traffic congestion as the city grows.
The Adelaide metropolitan area has one freeway and four expressways. In order of construction, they are:
Airports.
The Adelaide metropolitan area has two commercial airports, Adelaide Airport and Parafield Airport. Adelaide Airport, in Adelaide's south-western suburbs, serves in excess of 8 million passengers annually. Parafield Airport, Adelaide's second airport north of the city centre, is used for small aircraft, pilot training and recreational aviation purposes. Parafield Airport served as Adelaide's main aerodrome until the opening of the Adelaide Airport in February 1955. Adelaide Airport serves many international and domestic destinations including all Australian state capitals.
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Adelaide is also home to a military airport, known as Edinburgh Airport, located in the northern suburbs. It was built in 1955 in a joint initiative with the United Kingdom for weapon development.
Health.
Adelaide's two largest hospitals are the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) in Adelaide Parklands, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Adelaide (800 beds), and the Flinders Medical Centre (580 beds) at Bedford Park, affiliated with Flinders University. The RAH also operates additional campuses for specialist care throughout the suburbs including the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre (150 beds) at Northfield and the Glenside Campus (129 beds) for acute mental health services.
Other major public hospitals are the Women's and Children's Hospital (305 beds), at North Adelaide; the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (340 beds) at Woodville; Modbury Hospital (174 beds) at Modbury; and the Lyell McEwin Hospital (198 beds) at Elizabeth Vale. Numerous private hospitals are also located throughout the city, with the largest operators being not-for-profits Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance (three hospitals) and Calvary Care (four hospitals).
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In 2017, the RAH was relocated from the city's East End to a new AU$2.3 billion facility built over former railyards in the West End. The state-of-the-art hospital forms part of a new biomedical precinct called BioMed City that collocates the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), the University of Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences building, the University of South Australia's Health Innovation Building, and the state's Dental Hospital. SAHMRI, with additional external funding, has built a $300 million second facility completed in 2024, which was intended to house the Australian Bragg Centre with Australia's first proton therapy unit. Construction is underway for the Women's and Children's Hospital to be relocated to the precinct adjacent the RAH by 2030.
The largest provider of community health care within Adelaide is the not-for-profit Royal District Nursing Service, which provides out of hospital care and hospital avoidance care.
Energy.
Adelaide's energy requirements were originally met by the Adelaide Electric Supply Company, which was nationalised by the Playford government in 1946, becoming the Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA). Despite significant public opposition and the Labor party's anti-privatisation stance which left the Liberal party one vote short of the numbers needed to pass the legislation, ETSA was privatised by the Olsen Government in 1999 by way of a 200-year lease for the distribution network (ETSA Utilities, later renamed SA Power Networks) and the outright purchase of ETSA Power by the Cheung Kong Holdings for $3.5 billion (11 times ETSA's annual earnings) after Labor MP Trevor Crothers resigned from the party and voted with the government.
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The electricity retail market was opened to competition in 2003 and although competition was expected to result in lower retail costs, prices increased by 23.7% in the market's first year. In 2004, the privatisation was deemed to be a failure with consumers paying 60% more for their power and with the state government estimated to lose $3 billion in power generation net income in the first ten years of privatisation. In 2012, the industry came under scrutiny for allegedly reducing supply by shutting down generators during periods of peak demand to force prices up. Increased media attention also revealed that in 2009 the state government had approved a 46% increase in retail prices to cover expected increases in the costs of generation while generation costs had in fact fallen 35% by 2012. South Australia has the highest retail price for electricity in the country.
Privatisation led to competition from a variety of companies who now separately provide for the generation, transmission, distribution and retail sales of gas and electricity. Electricity generation comes from a range of technologies and operators. ElectraNet operates the high-voltage electricity transmission network. SA Power Networks distributes electricity to end users. The largest electricity and gas retailing companies are also the largest generating companies.
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The largest fossil fuel power stations are the Torrens Island Power Station gas-fired plant operated by AGL Energy and the Pelican Point Power Station operated by Engie. South Australia also has wind and solar power and connections to the national grid. Gas is supplied from the Moomba Gas Processing Plant in the Cooper Basin via the Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System and the SEAGas pipeline from Victoria.
In 2011, South Australia generated 18% of its electricity from wind power, and had 51% of the installed capacity of wind generators in Australia.
Due to almost universal blackouts within the city during September 2016, the state worked with Tesla to produce the world's largest electricity battery at Hornsdale Power Reserve which has increased that state's electrical security to the extent in which large blackouts are no longer an event.
Water.
The provision of water services is by the government-owned SA Water. Adelaide's water is supplied from its seven reservoirs: Mount Bold, Happy Valley, Myponga, Millbrook, Hope Valley, Little Para and South Para. The yield from these reservoir catchments can be as little as 10% of the city's requirements (90GL per annum) in drought years and about 60% in average years. The remaining demand is met by the pumping of water from the River Murray.
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A sea-water desalination plant capable of supplying 100GL per annum was built during the 2001–2009 drought; however, it operated at about 8% of its capacity until 2019. In December 2018, the State and Federal Governments agreed to fund a $2m study to determine how the plant could be used to reduce reliance on river water, in an effort to help save the Murray River basin and mouth (including the Coorong) from further ecological damage.
Communications.
AdelaideFree WiFi is a citywide free Wi-Fi network covering most of the inner city areas of Adelaide, primarily the Adelaide CBD and Northern Adelaide precincts. It was officially launched at the Adelaide Central Markets on Tuesday 25 June 2014. It is provided by Internode, with infrastructure provided by outdoor Cisco WiFi N access points attached to the top of lighting poles, as well as inside cafes and businesses across the city.
Sister cities.
The City of Adelaide has been involved in the sister cities movement since 1972. it has long-term international partnership arrangements with five cities, known as sister cities, based on formal agreements between Adelaide and each city. This allows collaboration in the cultural, educational, business, and technical spheres. The five sister cities are:
Three cities are known as friendship cities, based on informal partnerships between three cities that promote collaboration and a friendly relationship between three cities:
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Alan Garner
Alan Garner (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. Much of his work is rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.
Born in Congleton, Garner grew up in Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as "The Edge", where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then briefly at Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern Period (circa 1590) building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner wrote a sequel, "The Moon of Gomrath" (1963), and a third book, "Boneland" (2012). He wrote several fantasy novels, including "Elidor" (1965), "The Owl Service" (1967) and "Red Shift" (1973).
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Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced "The Stone Book Quartet" (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled "Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold" (1979), "Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales" (1984) and "A Bag of Moonshine" (1986). In his subsequent novels, "Strandloper" (1996) and "Thursbitch" (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work.
Biography.
Early life: 1934–56.
Garner was born in the front room of his grandmother's house in Congleton, Cheshire, on 17 October 1934. He was raised in Alderley Edge, a well-to-do village that had effectively become a suburb of Manchester. His "rural working-class family", had been connected to Alderley Edge since at least the sixteenth century and could be traced back to the death of William Garner in 1592. Garner has stated that his family had passed on "a genuine oral tradition" involving folk tales about The Edge, which included a description of a king and his army of knights who slept under it, guarded by a wizard. In the mid-nineteenth century Alan's great-great-grandfather Robert had carved the face of a bearded wizard onto the face of a cliff next to a well, known locally at that time as the Wizard's Well.
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Robert Garner and his other relatives had all been craftsmen, and, according to Garner, each successive generation had tried to "improve on, or do something different from, the previous generation". Garner's grandfather, Joseph Garner, "could read, but didn't and so was virtually unlettered". Instead, he taught his grandson the folk tales he knew about The Edge. Garner later remarked that as a result, he was "aware of [the Edge's] magic" as a child, and he and his friends often played there. The story of the king and the wizard living under the hill played an important part in his life, becoming, he explained, "deeply embedded in my psyche" and heavily influencing his later novels.
Garner faced several life-threatening childhood illnesses, which left him bed ridden for much of the time. He attended a local village school, where he found that, despite being praised for his intelligence, he was punished for speaking in his native Cheshire dialect; for instance, when he was six his primary school teacher washed his mouth out with soapy water. Garner then won a place at Manchester Grammar School, where he received his secondary education; entry was means-tested, resulting in his school fees being waived. Rather than focusing his interest on creative writing, it was here that he excelled at sprinting. He used to go jogging along the highway, and later claimed that in doing so he was sometimes accompanied by the mathematician Alan Turing, who shared his fascination for the Disney film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Garner was then conscripted into national service, serving for a time with the Royal Artillery while posted to Woolwich in Southeast London.
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At school, Garner had developed a keen interest in the work of Aeschylus and Homer, as well as the Ancient Greek language. Thus, he decided to pursue the study of Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, passing his entrance exams in January 1953; at the time he had thoughts of becoming a professional academic. He was the first member of his family to receive anything more than a basic education, and he noted that this removed him from his "cultural background" and led to something of a schism with other members of his family, who "could not cope with me, and I could not cope with" them. Looking back, he remarked, "I soon learned that it was not a good idea to come home excited over irregular verbs". In 1955, he joined the university theatrical society, playing the role of Mark Antony in a performance of William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" where he co-starred alongside Dudley Moore and where Kenneth Baker was the stage manager. In August 1956, he decided that he wished to devote himself to novel writing, and decided to abandon his university education without taking a degree; he left Oxford in late 1956. He nevertheless felt that the academic rigour which he learned during his university studies has remained "a permanent strength through all my life".
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"The Weirdstone of Brisingamen" and "The Moon of Gomrath": 1957–64.
Aged 22, Garner was out cycling when he came across a hand-painted sign announcing that an agricultural cottage in Toad Hall – a late medieval building situated in Blackden, seven miles from Alderley Edge – was on sale for £510. Although he personally could not afford it, he was lent the money by the local Oddfellow lodge, enabling him to purchase and move into the cottage in June 1957. In the late nineteenth century the Hall had been divided into two agricultural labourers' cottages, but Garner was able to purchase the second for £150 about a year later; he proceeded to knock down the dividing walls and convert both halves back into a single home.
Garner had begun writing his first novel, "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley", in September 1956. However it was while at Toad Hall that he finished the book. Set in Alderley Edge, it revolves around two children, Susan and Colin, who are sent to live in the area with their mother's old nursemaid, Bess, and her husband, Gowther Mossock. While exploring the Edge, they encounter a race of malevolent creatures, the "svart alfar", who dwell in the Edge's abandoned mines and who seem intent on capturing them. They are rescued by the wizard Cadellin, who reveals that the forces of darkness are massing at the Edge in search of a powerful magical talisman, the eponymous "weirdstone of Brisingamen".
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Whilst writing in his spare time Garner attempted to gain employment as a teacher, but soon gave that up, believing that "I couldn't write and teach; the energies were too similar." Instead, he worked off and on as a general labourer for four years, remaining unemployed for much of that time.
Garner sent his debut novel to the publishing company Collins, where it was picked up by the company's head, Sir William Collins, who was on the lookout for new fantasy novels following the recent commercial and critical success of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (1954–55). Garner, who went on to become a personal friend of Collins, would later relate that "Billy Collins saw a title with funny-looking words in it on the stockpile, and he decided to publish it." On its release in 1960, "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen" proved to be a critical and commercial success, later being described as "a tour de force of the imagination, a novel that showed almost every writer who came afterwards what it was possible to achieve in novels ostensibly published for children." Garner himself however would later denounce his first novel as "a fairly bad book" in 1968.
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With his first book published, Garner abandoned his work as a labourer and gained a job as a freelance television reporter, living a "hand to mouth" lifestyle on a "shoestring" budget. He also began a sequel to "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", which would be known as "The Moon of Gomrath". "The Moon of Gomrath" also revolves around the adventures of Colin and Susan, with the latter being possessed by a malevolent creature called the Brollachan who has recently re-entered the world, having been freed from its underground prison by workmen. With the help of the wizard Cadellin, the Brollachan is exorcised, but Susan's soul also leaves her body, being sent to another dimension, leaving Colin to find a way to bring it back. Critic Neil Philip characterised it as "an artistic advance" but "a less satisfying story". In a 1989 interview, Garner stated that he had left scope for a third book following the adventures of Colin and Susan, envisioning a trilogy, but that he had intentionally decided not to write it, instead moving on to write something different. However "Boneland", the conclusion to the sequence, was belatedly published in August 2012.
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"Elidor", "The Owl Service" and "Red Shift": 1964–73.
In 1962, Garner began work on a radio play entitled "Elidor", which eventually became a novel of the same name. Set in contemporary Manchester, "Elidor" tells the story of four children who enter a derelict Victorian church and find a portal to the magical realm of Elidor. In Elidor, they are entrusted by King Malebron to help rescue four treasures which have been stolen by the forces of evil, who are attempting to take control of the kingdom. The children succeed and return to Manchester with the treasures, but are pursued by the malevolent forces who need the items to seal their victory.
Before writing "Elidor", Garner had seen a dinner service set which could be arranged to make pictures of either flowers or owls. Inspired by this design, he produced his fourth novel, "The Owl Service". The story, which was heavily influenced by the Medieval Welsh tale of Math fab Mathonwy from the "Mabinogion", was critically acclaimed, winning both the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. It also sparked discussions among critics as to whether Garner should properly be considered a children's writer, given that this book in particular was deemed equally suitable for an adult readership.
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It took Garner six years to write his next novel, "Red Shift". The book centres on three intertwined love stories, one set in the present, another during the English Civil War, and the third in the second century CE. Philip referred to it as "a complex book but not a complicated one: the bare lines of story and emotion stand clear".
Academic specialist in children's literature Maria Nikolajeva characterised "Red Shift" as "a difficult book" for an unprepared reader, identifying its main themes as those of "loneliness and failure to communicate". Ultimately, she thought that repeated re-readings of the novel bring about the realisation that "it is a perfectly realistic story with much more depth and psychologically more credible than the most so-called "realistic" juvenile novels."
"The Stone Book" series and folkloric collections: 1974–94.
From 1976 to 1978, Garner published a series of four novellas, which have come to be collectively known as "The Stone Book" quartet: "The Stone Book", "Granny Reardun", "The Aimer Gate", and "Tom Fobble's Day". Each focused on a day in the life of a child in the Garner family, each from a different generation.
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In a 1989 interview, Garner noted that although writing "The Stone Book Quartet" had been "exhausting", it had been "the most rewarding of everything" he'd done to date. Philip described the quartet as "a complete command of the material he had been working and reworking since the start of his career".
Garner pays particular attention to language, and strives to render the cadence of the Cheshire tongue in modern English. This he explains by the sense of anger he felt on reading "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": the footnotes would not have been needed by his father.
In 1981, the literary critic Neil Philip published an analysis of Garner's novels as "A Fine Anger", which was based on his doctoral thesis, produced for the University of London in 1980. In this study he noted that ""The Stone Book" quartet marks a watershed in Garner's writing career, and provides a suitable moment for an evaluation of his work thus far."
"Strandloper", "Thursbitch", "Boneland", "Where Shall We Run To?" and "Treacle Walker": 1996–present.
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In 1996, Garner's novel "Strandloper" was published.
In 1997, he next wrote "The Voice That Thunders, a" collection of essays and public talks that contains much autobiographical material (including an account of his life with bipolar disorder), as well as critical reflection upon folklore and language, literature and education, the nature of myth and time. In "The Voice That Thunders," he reveals the commercial pressure placed upon him during the decade-long drought which preceded "Strandloper" to 'forsake "literature", and become instead a "popular" writer, cashing in on my established name by producing sequels to, and making series of, the earlier books'. Garner feared that "making series ... would render sterile the existing work, the life that produced it, and bring about my artistic and spiritual death" and felt unable to comply.
Garner's novel "Thursbitch" was published in 2003.
The novel "Boneland" was published in 2012, nominally completing a trilogy begun some 50 years earlier with "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen".
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In August 2018, Garner published his first set of memoirs, "Where Shall We Run To?", which describes his childhood during the Second World War.
The novel "Treacle Walker" was published in October 2021 and nominated to the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize.
In October 2024, a week before his 90th birthday, Garner published a second set of memoirs, "Powsels and Thrums", framed and inspired by his grandfather. This book contains short essays on a variety of people and events in Garner's life from his starting at Manchester Grammar in 1946 through to his discovery of Alderley Edge in the 1950s, interspersed with poems.
Personal life.
With his first wife Ann Cook he had three children. In 1972, he married for a second time, this time to Griselda Greaves, a teacher and critic with whom he had two children. In a 2014 interview conducted with Mike Pitts for "British Archaeology" magazine, Garner stated that "I don't have anything to do with the literary world. I avoid writers. I don't like them. Most of my close personal friends are professional archaeologists."
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Literary style.
Although Garner's early work is often labelled as "children's literature", Garner himself rejects such a description, informing one interviewer that "I certainly have never written for children" but that instead, he has always written purely for himself. Neil Philip, in his critical study of Garner's work (1981), commented that up until that point "Everything Alan Garner has published has been published for children", although he went on to relate that "It may be that Garner's is a case" where the division between children's and adults' literature is "meaningless" and that his fiction is instead "enjoyed by a type of person, no matter what their age." He said "An adult point of view would not give me the ability to be as fresh in my vision as a child's point of view, because the child is still discovering the universe and many adults are not."
Philip offered the opinion that the "essence of his work" was "the struggle to render the complex in simple, bare terms; to couch the abstract in the concrete and communicate it directly to the reader". He added that Garner's work is "intensely autobiographical, in both obvious and subtle ways". Highlighting Garner's use of mythological and folkloric sources, Philip stated that his work explores "the disjointed and troubled psychological and emotional landscape of the twentieth century through the symbolism of myth and folklore." He also expressed the opinion that "Time is Garner's most consistent theme".
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The English author and academic Catherine Butler noted that Garner was attentive to the "geological, archaeological and cultural history of his settings, and careful to integrate his fiction with the physical reality beyond the page." As a part of this, Garner had included maps of Alderley Edge in both "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen" and "The Moon of Gomrath". Garner has spent much time investigating the areas that he deals with in his books; writing in the "Times Literary Supplement" in 1968, Garner commented that in preparation for writing his book "Elidor":
I had to read extensively textbooks on physics, Celtic symbolism, unicorns, medieval watermarks, megalithic archaeology; study the writings of Jung; brush up my Plato; visit Avebury, Silbury and Coventry Cathedral; spend a lot of time with demolition gangs on slum clearance sites; and listen to the whole of Britten's "War Requiem" nearly every day.
Recognition and legacy.
In a paper published in the "Children's Literature Association Quarterly", Maria Nikolajeva characterised Garner as "one of the most controversial" authors of modern children's literature.
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In the fiftieth anniversary edition of "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", published by HarperCollins in 2010, several notable British fantasists praised Garner and his work. Susan Cooper wrote that "The power and range of Alan Garner's astounding talent has grown with every book he's written", and David Almond called him one of Britain's "greatest writers" whose works "really matter". Philip Pullman, the author of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, went further:
Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration.
Another British fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman, claimed that "Garner's fiction is something special" in that it was "smart and challenging, based in the here and the now, in which real English places emerged from the shadows of folklore, and in which people found themselves walking, living and battling their way through the dreams and patterns of myth." Praise also came from Nick Lake, the editorial director of HarperCollins Children's Books, who proclaimed that "Garner is, quite simply, one of the greatest and most influential writers this country has ever produced." Emma Donoghue recalls reading "Red Shift" as a teenager: "It looked like other Garners I had read: a children's fantasy. But "Red Shift", with its passionately bickering adolescent lovers and vertiginous plunges through the wormhole of time, shook me to my core every time I read it, and still does... Garner makes the past numinous, terrifyingly real: anything but passed."
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Awards.
The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Garner was the sole runner-up for the writing award in 1978.
Garner was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to literature in the 2001 New Year's Honours list. He received the British Fantasy Society's occasional Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2003 and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2012. In January 2011, the University of Warwick awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa). On that occasion he gave a half-hour interview about his work. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Salford (2011) and the University of Huddersfield in (2012).
He has been recognised several times for particular works.
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Atlantic (disambiguation)
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceans, that separates the old world from the new world.
Atlantic may also refer to:
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Algebraic number
An algebraic number is a number that is a root of a non-zero polynomial in one variable with integer (or, equivalently, rational) coefficients. For example, the golden ratio, formula_1, is an algebraic number, because it is a root of the polynomial . That is, it is a value for x for which the polynomial evaluates to zero. As another example, the complex number formula_2 is algebraic because it is a root of .
All integers and rational numbers are algebraic, as are all roots of integers. Real and complex numbers that are not algebraic, such as and , are called transcendental numbers.
The set of algebraic (complex) numbers is countably infinite and has measure zero in the Lebesgue measure as a subset of the uncountable complex numbers. In that sense, almost all complex numbers are transcendental. Similarly, the set of algebraic (real) numbers is countably infinite and has Lebesgue measure zero as a subset of the real numbers, and in that sense almost all real numbers are transcendental.
Properties.
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Degree of simple extensions of the rationals as a criterion to algebraicity.
For any , the simple extension of the rationals by , denoted by formula_6, is of finite degree if and only if is an algebraic number.
The condition of finite degree means that there is a finite set formula_7 in formula_8 such that formula_9; that is, every member in formula_8 can be written as formula_11 for some rational numbers formula_12 (note that the set formula_13 is fixed).
Indeed, since the formula_14 are themselves members of formula_8, each can be expressed as sums of products of rational numbers and powers of , and therefore this condition is equivalent to the requirement that for some finite formula_16, formula_17.
The latter condition is equivalent to formula_18, itself a member of formula_8, being expressible as formula_20 for some rationals formula_21, so formula_22 or, equivalently, is a root of formula_23; that is, an algebraic number with a minimal polynomial of degree not larger than formula_24.
It can similarly be proven that for any finite set of algebraic numbers formula_25, formula_26... formula_27, the field extension formula_28 has a finite degree.
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Field.
The sum, difference, product, and quotient (if the denominator is nonzero) of two algebraic numbers is again algebraic:
For any two algebraic numbers , , this follows directly from the fact that the simple extension formula_29, for formula_30 being either formula_31, formula_32, formula_33 or (for formula_34) formula_35, is a linear subspace of the finite-degree field extension formula_36, and therefore has a finite degree itself, from which it follows (as shown above) that formula_30 is algebraic.
An alternative way of showing this is constructively, by using the resultant.
Algebraic numbers thus form a field formula_38 (sometimes denoted by formula_39, but that usually denotes the adele ring).
Algebraic closure.
Every root of a polynomial equation whose coefficients are "algebraic numbers" is again algebraic. That can be rephrased by saying that the field of algebraic numbers is algebraically closed. In fact, it is the smallest algebraically closed field containing the rationals and so it is called the algebraic closure of the rationals.
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That the field of algebraic numbers is algebraically closed can be proven as follows: Let be a root of a polynomial formula_40 with coefficients that are algebraic numbers formula_41, formula_25, formula_26... formula_27. The field extension formula_45 then has a finite degree with respect to formula_46. The simple extension formula_47 then has a finite degree with respect to formula_48 (since all powers of can be expressed by powers of up to formula_49). Therefore, formula_50 also has a finite degree with respect to formula_46. Since formula_52 is a linear subspace of formula_47, it must also have a finite degree with respect to formula_46, so must be an algebraic number.
Related fields.
Numbers defined by radicals.
Any number that can be obtained from the integers using a finite number of additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, and taking (possibly complex) th roots where is a positive integer are algebraic. The converse, however, is not true: there are algebraic numbers that cannot be obtained in this manner. These numbers are roots of polynomials of degree 5 or higher, a result of Galois theory (see Quintic equations and the Abel–Ruffini theorem). For example, the equation:
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has a unique real root, ≈ 1.1673, that cannot be expressed in terms of only radicals and arithmetic operations.
Closed-form number.
Algebraic numbers are all numbers that can be defined explicitly or implicitly in terms of polynomials, starting from the rational numbers. One may generalize this to "closed-form numbers", which may be defined in various ways. Most broadly, all numbers that can be defined explicitly or implicitly in terms of polynomials, exponentials, and logarithms are called "elementary numbers", and these include the algebraic numbers, plus some transcendental numbers. Most narrowly, one may consider numbers "explicitly" defined in terms of polynomials, exponentials, and logarithms – this does not include all algebraic numbers, but does include some simple transcendental numbers such as or ln 2.
Algebraic integers.
An "algebraic integer" is an algebraic number that is a root of a polynomial with integer coefficients with leading coefficient 1 (a monic polynomial). Examples of algebraic integers are formula_56 formula_57 and formula_58 Therefore, the algebraic integers constitute a proper superset of the integers, as the latter are the roots of monic polynomials for all formula_59. In this sense, algebraic integers are to algebraic numbers what integers are to rational numbers.
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The sum, difference and product of algebraic integers are again algebraic integers, which means that the algebraic integers form a ring. The name "algebraic integer" comes from the fact that the only rational numbers that are algebraic integers are the integers, and because the algebraic integers in any number field are in many ways analogous to the integers. If is a number field, its ring of integers is the subring of algebraic integers in , and is frequently denoted as . These are the prototypical examples of Dedekind domains.
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Automorphism
In mathematics, an automorphism is an isomorphism from a mathematical object to itself. It is, in some sense, a symmetry of the object, and a way of mapping the object to itself while preserving all of its structure. The set of all automorphisms of an object forms a group, called the automorphism group. It is, loosely speaking, the symmetry group of the object.
Definition.
In an algebraic structure such as a group, a ring, or vector space, an "automorphism" is simply a bijective homomorphism of an object into itself. (The definition of a homomorphism depends on the type of algebraic structure; see, for example, group homomorphism, ring homomorphism, and linear operator.)
More generally, for an object in some category, an automorphism is a morphism of the object to itself that has an inverse morphism; that is, a morphism formula_1 is an automorphism if there is a morphism formula_2 such that formula_3 where formula_4 is the identity morphism of . For algebraic structures, the two definitions are equivalent; in this case, the identity morphism is simply the identity function, and is often called the "trivial automorphism".
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Automorphism group.
The automorphisms of an object form a group under composition of morphisms, which is called the "automorphism group" of . This results straightforwardly from the definition of a category.
The automorphism group of an object in a category is often denoted , or simply Aut("X") if the category is clear from context.
History.
One of the earliest group automorphisms (automorphism of a group, not simply a group of automorphisms of points) was given by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1856, in his icosian calculus, where he discovered an order two automorphism, writing:
so that formula_12 is a new fifth root of unity, connected with the former fifth root formula_13 by relations of perfect reciprocity.
Inner and outer automorphisms.
In some categories—notably groups, rings, and Lie algebras—it is possible to separate automorphisms into two types, called "inner" and "outer" automorphisms.
In the case of groups, the inner automorphisms are the conjugations by the elements of the group itself. For each element "a" of a group "G", conjugation by "a" is the operation given by (or "a"−1"ga"; usage varies). One can easily check that conjugation by "a" is a group automorphism. The inner automorphisms form a normal subgroup of Aut("G"), denoted by Inn("G"); this is called Goursat's lemma.
The other automorphisms are called outer automorphisms. The quotient group is usually denoted by Out("G"); the non-trivial elements are the cosets that contain the outer automorphisms.
The same definition holds in any unital ring or algebra where "a" is any invertible element. For Lie algebras the definition is slightly different.
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Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame). The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the diskant, usually on the right-hand keyboard, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side (referred to as the keyboard or sometimes the "manual"), and the accompaniment on bass or pre-set chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.
The accordion belongs to the free-reed aerophone family. Other instruments in this family include the concertina, harmonica, and bandoneon. The concertina and bandoneon do not have the melody–accompaniment duality. The harmoneon is also related and, while having the descant vs. melody dualism, tries to make it less pronounced. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor.
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The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing "pallets" to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called "reeds". These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.
The accordion is widely spread across the world because of the waves of migration from Europe to the Americas and other regions. In some countries (for example: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Panama) it is used in popular music (for example: Chamamé in Argentina; gaucho, forró, and sertanejo in Brazil; vallenato in Colombia; merengue in the Dominican Republic; and norteño in Mexico), whereas in other regions (such as Europe, North America, and other countries in South America) it tends to be more used for dance-pop and folk music.
In Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is used in cajun, zydeco, jazz, and klezmer music, and in both solo and orchestral performances of classical music. Many conservatories in Europe have classical accordion departments. The oldest name for this group of instruments is "harmonika", from the Greek "", meaning "harmonic, musical". Today, native versions of the name "accordion" are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian, which concerned "automatically coupled chords on the bass side".
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History.
The accordion's basic form is believed to have been invented in Berlin, in 1822, by Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann, although one instrument was discovered in 2006 that appears to have been built earlier.
The earliest history of the accordion in Russia is poorly documented. Nevertheless, according to Russian researchers, the earliest known simple accordions were made in Tula, Russia, by and around 1830, after they received an early accordion from Germany. By the late 1840s, the instrument was already very widespread; together the factories of the two masters were producing 10,000 instruments a year. By 1866, over 50,000 instruments were being produced yearly by Tula and neighbouring villages, and by 1874 the yearly production was over 700,000. By the 1860s, Novgorod, Vyatka and Saratov governorates also had significant accordion production. By the 1880s, the list included Oryol, Ryazan, Moscow, Tver, Vologda, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod and Simbirsk, and many of these places created their own varieties of the instrument.
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The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that use free reeds driven by a bellows. An instrument called "accordion" was first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna. Demian's instrument bore little resemblance to modern instruments. It only had a left-hand buttonboard, with the right hand simply operating the bellows. One key feature for which Demian sought the patent was the sounding of an entire chord by depressing one key. His instrument could also sound two chords with the same key, one for each bellow direction (a "bisonoric" action). At that time in Vienna, mouth harmonicas with "Kanzellen" (chambers) had already been available for many years, along with bigger instruments driven by hand bellows. The diatonic key arrangement was also already used on mouth-blown instruments. Demian's patent thus covered an accompanying instrument: an accordion played with the left hand, opposite to how contemporary chromatic hand harmonicas were played, small and light enough for travelers to take with them and used to accompany singing. The patent also described instruments with both bass and treble sections, although Demian preferred the bass-only instrument owing to its cost and weight advantages.
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The accordion was introduced from Germany into Britain in about the year 1828. The instrument was noted in "The Times" in 1831 as one new to British audiences and was not favourably reviewed, but nevertheless it soon became popular. It had also become popular with New Yorkers by the mid-1840s.
After Demian's invention, other accordions appeared, some featuring only the right-handed keyboard for playing melodies. It took English inventor Charles Wheatstone to bring both chords and keyboard together in one squeezebox. His 1844 patent for what he called a "concertina" also featured the ability to easily tune the reeds from the outside with a simple tool.
The Austrian musician Adolf Müller described a great variety of instruments in his 1854 book "". At the time, Vienna and London had a close musical relationship, with musicians often performing in both cities in the same year, so it is possible that Wheatstone was aware of this type of instrument and may have used them to put his key-arrangement ideas into practice.
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Jeune's "flutina" resembles Wheatstone's concertina in internal construction and tone colour, but it appears to complement Demian's accordion functionally. The flutina is a one-sided bisonoric melody-only instrument whose keys are operated with the right hand while the bellows are operated with the left. When the two instruments are combined, the result is quite similar to diatonic button accordions still manufactured today.
Further innovations followed and continue to the present. Various buttonboard and keyboard systems have been developed, as well as voicings (the combination of multiple tones at different octaves), with mechanisms to switch between different voices during performance, and different methods of internal construction to improve tone, stability, and durability. Modern accordions may incorporate electronics such as condenser microphones and tone and volume controls so that the accordion can be plugged into a PA system or keyboard amplifier for live shows. Some 2010s-era accordions may incorporate MIDI sensors and circuitry, enabling the accordion to be plugged into a synth module and produce accordion sounds or other synthesized instrument sounds, such as piano or organ.
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Construction.
Accordions have many configurations and types. What may be easy to do with one type of accordion could be technically challenging or impossible with another, and proficiency with one layout may not translate to another.
The most obvious difference between accordions is their right-hand sides. Piano accordions use a piano-style musical keyboard; button accordions use a buttonboard. Button accordions are furthermore differentiated by their usage of a chromatic or diatonic buttonboard for the right-hand side.
Accordions may be either bisonoric, producing different pitches depending on the direction of bellows movement, or unisonoric, producing the same pitch in both directions. Piano accordions are unisonoric. Chromatic button accordions also tend to be unisonoric, while diatonic button accordions tend to be bisonoric, though notable exceptions exist.
Accordion size is not standardized, and may vary significantly from model to model. Accordions vary not only in their dimensions and weight, but also in the number of buttons or keys present in the right- and left-hand keyboards. For example, piano accordions may have as few as 8 bass buttons (two rows of four), or up to 140 (seven rows of twenty) or beyond. Accordions also vary by their available registers and by their specific tuning and voicing.
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Despite these differences, all accordions share several common components.
Universal components.
Bellows.
The bellows is the most recognizable part of the instrument, and the primary means of articulation. The production of sound in an accordion is in direct proportion to the motion of the bellows by the player. In a sense, the role of the bellows can be compared to the role of moving a violin's bow on bowed strings. For a more direct analogy, the bellows can be compared to the role of breathing for a singer. The bellows is located between the right- and left-hand keyboards, and is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to create pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibrations, applied pressure increases the volume.
The keyboard touch is not expressive and does not affect dynamics: all expression is effected through the bellows. Bellows effects include:
Body.
The accordion's body consists of two boxes, commonly made of wood, joined by the bellows. These boxes house reed chambers for the right- and left-hand keyboards. Each side has grilles in order to facilitate the transmission of air in and out of the instrument and to allow the sound to project. The grille at the right-hand side is usually larger and is often shaped for decorative purposes. The right-hand keyboard is normally used for playing the melody and the left-hand one for playing the accompaniment; however, skilled players can reverse these roles and play melodies with the left hand.
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The size and weight of an accordion varies depending on its type, layout and playing range, which can be as small as to have only one or two rows of basses and a single octave on the right-hand keyboard, to the most common 120-bass accordion and through to large and heavy 160-bass free-bass converter models.
Pallet mechanism.
The accordion is an aerophone. The keyboard mechanisms of the instrument either enable the air flow, or disable it:
Variable components.
The term "accordion" covers a wide range of instruments, with varying components. All instruments have reed ranks of some format, apart from reedless digital accordions. Not all have switches to change registers or ranks, as some have only one treble register and one bass register. The most typical accordion is the piano accordion, which is used for many musical genres. Another type of accordion is the button accordion, which is used in musical traditions including Cajun, Conjunto and Tejano music, Swiss and Slovenian-Austro-German Alpine music, and Argentinian tango music. The Helikon-style accordion has multiple flared horns projecting out of the left side to strengthen the bass tone. The word "Helikon" refers to a deep-pitched tuba.
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Right-hand keyboard systems.
Different systems exist for the right-hand keyboard of an accordion, which is normally used for playing the melody (while it can also play chords). Some use a button layout arranged in one way or another, while others use a piano-style keyboard. Each system has different claimed benefits by those who prefer it. They are also used to define one accordion or another as a different "type":
Left-hand keyboard systems.
Different systems are also in use for the left-hand keyboard, which is normally used for playing the accompaniment. These usually use distinct bass buttons and often have buttons with concavities or studs to help the player navigate the layout despite not being able to see the buttons while playing. There are three general categories:
Reed ranks and switches.
Inside the accordion are the reeds that generate the instrument tones. These are organized in different sounding "banks", which can be further combined into "registers" producing differing "timbres". All but the smaller accordions are equipped with switches that control which combination of reed banks operate, organized from high to low registers. Each register stop produces a separate sound timbre, many of which also differ in octaves or in how different octaves are combined. See the accordion reed ranks and switches article for further explanation and audio samples. All but the smaller accordions usually have treble switches. The larger and more expensive accordions often also have bass switches to give options for the reed bank on the bass side.
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Classification of chromatic and piano type accordions.
In describing or pricing an accordion, the first factor is size, expressed in number of keys on either side. For a piano type, this could for one example be 37/96, meaning 37 treble keys (three octaves plus one note) on the treble side and 96 bass keys. A second aspect of size is the width of the white keys, which means that even accordions with the same number of keys have keyboards of different lengths, ranging from for a child's accordion to for an adult-sized instrument. After size, the price and weight of an accordion is largely dependent on the number of reed ranks on either side, either on a cassotto or not, and to a lesser degree on the number of combinations available through register switches. The next, but important, factor is the quality of the reeds, the highest grade called "a mano" (meaning "hand-made"), the next "tipo a mano" ("like hand-made"), lower grades including "export" and several more.
Price is also affected by the use of costly woods, luxury decorations, and features such as a palm switch, grille mute, and so on. Some accordion makers sell a range of different models, from a less-expensive base model to a more costly luxury model. Typically, the register switches are described as "Reeds: 5 + 3", meaning five reeds on the treble side and three on the bass, and "Registers: 13 + M, 7", meaning 13 register buttons on the treble side plus a special "master" that activates all ranks, like the "tutti" or "full organ" switch on an organ, and seven register switches on the bass side. Another factor affecting the price is the presence of electronics, such as condenser microphones, volume and tone controls, or MIDI sensors and connections.
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Straps.
The larger piano and chromatic button accordions are usually heavier than other smaller squeezeboxes, and are equipped with two shoulder straps to make it easier to balance the weight and increase bellows control while sitting, and avoid dropping the instrument while standing. Other accordions, such as the diatonic button accordion, have only a single shoulder strap and a right hand thumb strap. All accordions have a (mostly adjustable) leather strap on the left-hand side to keep the player's hand in position while drawing the bellows. There are also straps above and below the bellows to keep it securely closed when the instrument is not being played.
Electronic and digital.
In the 2010s, a range of electronic and digital accordions were introduced. They have an electronic sound module which creates the accordion sound, and most use MIDI systems to encode the keypresses and transmit them to the sound module. A digital accordion can have hundreds of sounds, which can include different types of accordions and even non-accordion sounds, such as pipe organ, piano, or guitar. Sensors are used on the buttons and keys, such as magnetic reed switches. Sensors are also used on the bellows to transmit the pushing and pulling of the bellows to the sound module. Digital accordions may have features not found in acoustic instruments, such as a piano-style sustain pedal, a modulation control for changing keys, and a portamento effect.
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As an electronic instrument, these types of accordions are plugged into a PA system or keyboard amplifier to produce sound. Some digital accordions have a small internal speaker and amplifier, so they can be used without a PA system or keyboard amplifier, at least for practicing and small venues like coffeehouses. One benefit of electronic accordions is that they can be practiced with headphones, making them inaudible to other people nearby. On a digital accordion, the volume of the right-hand keyboard and the left-hand buttons can be independently adjusted.
Acoustic-digital hybrid accordions also exist. They are acoustic accordions (with reeds, bellows, and so on), but they also contain sensors, electronics, and MIDI connections, which provides a wider range of sound options. An acoustic-digital hybrid may be manufactured in this form, or it may be an acoustic accordion which has had aftermarket electronics sensors and connections added. Several companies sell aftermarket electronics kits, but they are typically installed by professional accordion technicians, because of the complex and delicate nature of the internal parts of an accordion.
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Unusual accordions.
Various hybrid accordions have been created between instruments of different buttonboards and actions. Many remain curiosities – only a few have remained in use:
Manufacturing process.
The most expensive accordions are typically fully hand-made, particularly the reeds; completely hand-made reeds have a better tonal quality than even the best automatically manufactured ones. Some accordions have been modified by individuals striving to bring a more pure sound out of low-end instruments, such as the ones improved by Yutaka Usui, a Japanese craftsman.
The manufacture of an accordion is only a partly automated process. In a sense, all accordions are handmade, since there is always some hand assembly of the small parts required. The general process involves making the individual parts, assembling the subsections, assembling the entire instrument, and final decorating and packaging.
Notable centres of production are the Italian cities of Stradella and Castelfidardo, with many small and medium size manufacturers especially at the latter. Castelfidardo honours the memory of Paolo Soprani who was one of the first large-scale producers. has built accordions in the French town of Tulle since 1919, and the company is now the last complete-process manufacturer of accordions in France. German companies such as Hohner and Weltmeister made large numbers of accordions, but production diminished by the end of the 20th century. Hohner still manufactures its top-end models in Germany, and "Weltmeister" instruments are still handmade by HARMONA Akkordeon GmbH in Klingenthal.
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Use in various music genres.
The accordion has traditionally been used to perform folk or ethnic music, popular music, and transcriptions from the operatic and light-classical music repertoire. It was also used by the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya and is the main instrument in the traditional Mwomboko dance. Today the instrument is sometimes heard in contemporary pop styles, such as rock and pop-rock, and occasionally even in serious classical music concerts, as well as advertisements.
Use in traditional music.
The accordion's popularity spread rapidly: it has mostly been associated with the common people, and was propagated by Europeans who emigrated around the world. The accordion in both button and piano forms became a favorite of folk musicians and has been integrated into traditional music styles all over the world: see the list of music styles that incorporate the accordion.
Use in jazz.
Notable jazz accordionists.
Early jazz accordionists include Charles Melrose, who recorded "Wailing Blues/Barrel House Stomp" (1930, Voc. 1503) with the Cellar Boys; Buster Moten, who played second piano and accordion in the Bennie Moten orchestra; and Jack Cornell, who did recordings with Irving Mills. Later jazz accordionists from the United States include Steve Bach, Milton DeLugg, Orlando DiGirolamo, Angelo Di Pippo, Dominic Frontiere, Guy Klucevsek, Yuri Lemeshev, Frank Marocco, Dr. William Schimmel, John Serry Sr., Lee Tomboulian, and Art Van Damme. French jazz accordionists include Richard Galliano, Bernard Lubat, and Vincent Peirani. Norwegian jazz accordionists include Asmund Bjørken, Stian Carstensen, Gabriel Fliflet, Frode Haltli, and Eivin One Pedersen.
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Left hand techniques.
The constraints of the Stradella bass system, limiting the left hand to preset chord buttons, is a barrier to some jazz chord conventions. Jazz accordionists expand the range of chord possibilities by using more than one chord button simultaneously, or by using combinations of a chord button and a bass note other than the typical root of the chord. An example of the former technique is used to play a minor seventh chord. To play an Am7(add9) chord, the Am and Em preset buttons are pressed simultaneously, along with an A bassnote. An example of the latter technique is used to play the half-diminished chord. To play an Eø7, a Gm preset button is pressed along with an E bassnote.
For the left hand, the free-bass system is used in jazz as a means of creating complex chord voicings. Jazz harmony that would otherwise be difficult to replicate with the Stradella bass system, such as tritone substitutions, become more accessible using a free-bass accordion.
Use in popular music.
The accordion appeared in popular music from the 1900s to the 1960s. This half-century is often called the "golden age of the accordion". Five players, Pietro Frosini, the two brothers Count Guido Deiro and Pietro Deiro and Slovenian brothers Vilko Ovsenik and Slavko Avsenik, Charles Magnante were major influences at this time.
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Most vaudeville theaters closed during the Great Depression, but accordionists during the 1930s–1950s taught and performed for radio. Included among this group was the concert virtuoso John Serry, Sr. During the 1950s through the 1980s the accordion received significant exposure on television with performances by Myron Floren on "The Lawrence Welk Show". In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the accordion declined in popularity because of the rise of rock and roll. The first accordionist to appear and perform at the Newport Jazz Festival was Angelo DiPippo. He can be seen playing his accordion in the motion picture "The Godfather". He also composed and performed with his accordion on part of the soundtrack of Woody Allen's movie "To Rome With Love". He was featured twice on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.
Richard Galliano is an internationally known accordionist whose repertoire covers jazz, tango nuevo, Latin, and classical. Some popular bands use the instrument to create distinctive sounds. A notable example is Grammy Award–winning parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic, who plays the accordion on many of his musical tracks, particularly his polkas. Yankovic was trained in the accordion as a child.
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The accordion has also been used in the rock genre, most notably by John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, featuring more prominently in the band's earlier works. The instrument is still frequently used during live performances, and continues to make appearances in their studio albums. Accordion is also used in the music of the Dropkick Murphys and Gogol Bordello. Tom Waits used the accordion extensively (often played by Dr. William Schimmel) on his album "Rain Dogs" and "Franks Wild Years". The folk metal subgenre also employs accordionists, but they are otherwise generally rare in other genres. Full-time accordionists in folk metal seem even rarer, but they are still utilized for studio work, as flexible keyboardists are usually more accessible for live performances. The Finnish symphonic folk-metal band Turisas used to have a full-time accordionist, employing classical and polka sensibilities alongside a violinist. One of their accordionists, Netta Skog, is now a member of Ensiferum, another folk-metal band. Another Finnish metal band, Korpiklaani, invokes a type of Finnish polka called humppa, and also has a full-time accordionist. Sarah Kiener, the former hurdy-gurdy player for the Swiss melodic-death-folk metal band Eluveitie, played a Helvetic accordion known as a "zugerörgeli".
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Use in classical music.
Although best known as a folk instrument, it has grown in popularity among classical composers. The earliest surviving concert piece is "", written in 1836 by Louise Reisner of Paris. Other composers, including the Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Italian Umberto Giordano, and the American Charles Ives, wrote works for the diatonic button accordion.
The first composer to write specifically for the chromatic accordion was Paul Hindemith. In 1922, the Austrian Alban Berg included an accordion in "Wozzeck", Op. 7. In 1937, the first accordion concerto was composed in Russia. Other notable composers have written for the accordion during the first half of the 20th century. Included among this group was the Italian-American John Serry Sr., whose "Concerto for Free Bass Accordion" was completed in 1964. In addition, the American accordionist Robert Davine composed his "Divertimento for Flute, Clarinet, Bassoon and Accordion" as a work for chamber orchestra. American composer William P. Perry featured the accordion in his orchestral suite "Six Title Themes in Search of a Movie" (2008). The experimental composer Howard Skempton began his musical career as an accordionist, and has written numerous solo works for it. In his work "Drang" (1999), British composer John Palmer pushed the expressive possibilities of the accordion/bayan. Luciano Berio wrote "Sequenza XIII" (1995) for accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti. Accordionists like Mogens Ellegaard, Joseph Macerollo, Nick Ariondo, Friedrich Lips, Hugo Noth, Dr. William Schimmel (also a composer), Stefan Hussong, Teodoro Anzellotti, and Geir Draugsvoll, encouraged composers to write new music for the accordion (solo and chamber music) and also started playing baroque music on the free bass accordion.
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French composer Henri Dutilleux used an accordion in both his late song cycles "Correspondences" (2003) and "Le Temps L'Horloge" (2009). Russian-born composer Sofia Gubaidulina has composed solos, concertos, and chamber works for accordion. Astor Piazzolla's concert tangos are performed widely. Piazzolla performed on the bandoneon, but his works are also performed on or accordion. Dr. William schimmel and "The Tango Project" recorded a number of hit recordings and appeared in the movie "Scent of a Woman" with Al Pacino which earned Pacino an Oscar. Their recordings were used in many films.
Australia.
The earliest mention of the novel accordion instrument in Australian music occurs in the 1830s.
The accordion initially competed against cheaper and more convenient reed instruments such as mouth organ, concertina and melodeon.
Frank Fracchia was an Australian accordion composer and copies of his works "My dear, can you come out tonight" and "Dancing with you" are preserved in Australian libraries.
Other Australian composers who arranged music for accordion include Reginald Stoneham.
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The popularity of the accordion peaked in the late 1930s and continued until the 1950s.
The accordion was particularly favoured by buskers.
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The accordion is a traditional instrument in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the dominant instrument used in sevdalinka, a traditional genre of folk music from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Brazil.
The accordion was brought to Brazil by settlers and immigrants from Europe, especially from Italy and Germany, who mainly settled in the south (Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná). The first instrument brought was a "Concertina" (a 120 button chromatic accordion). The instrument was popular in the 1950s, and it was common to find several accordions in the same house. There are many different configurations and tunes which were adapted from the cultures that came from Europe.
Accordion is the official symbol instrument of the Rio Grande do Sul state, where was voted by unanimity in the deputy chamber.
During the boom of accordions there were around 65 factories in Brazil, where most of them (52) in the south, in Rio Grande do Sul state, with only 7 outside the south. One of the most famous and genuinely Brazilian brands was Accordeões Todeschini from Bento Gonçalves-RS, closed in 1973. The Todeschini accordion is very appreciated today and survives with very few maintainers. The most notable musicians of button accordions are Renato Borghetti, Adelar Bertussi, Albino Manique and Edson Dutra.
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Compared to many other countries, the instrument is very popular in mainstream pop music. In some parts of the country, such as the northeast it is the most popular melodic instrument. As opposed to most European folk accordions, a very dry tuning is usually used in Brazil. Outside the south, the accordion (predominantly the piano accordion) is used in almost all styles of Forró (in particular in the subgenres of Xote and Baião) as the principal instrument, Luiz Gonzaga (the "King of the Baião") and Dominguinhos being among the notable musicians in this style from the northeast. In this musical style the typical combination is a trio of accordion, triangle and zabumba (a type of drum).
This style has gained popularity recently, in particular among the student population of the southeast of the country (in the Forró Universitário genre, with important exponents today being Falamansa, and trios such as Trio Dona Zefa, Trio Virgulino and Trio Alvorada). Moreover, the accordion is the principal instrument in Junina music (music of the São João Festival), with Mario Zan having been a very important exponent of this music. It is an important instrument in Sertanejo (and Caipira) music, which originated in the midwest and southeast of Brazil, and subsequently has gained popularity throughout the country.
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China.
The number of accordionists in China exceeds every other country in the world, and possibly every country combined. Introduced in 1926, the accordion has risen to popularity in China throughout the years, thanks to Russian teachers and its being a popular instrument in the People's Liberation Army, and remains popular.
In the late 20th century, the development of high performance standards for the accordion within China's halls of academe was also influenced by several American virtuosos including Robert Davine, who was invited by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic to present Master Classes and to broaden its national program of music for the accordion in 1984.
Colombia.
The accordion is also a traditional instrument in Colombia, commonly associated with the vallenato and cumbia genres. The accordion has been used by tropipop musicians such as Carlos Vives, Andrés Cabas, Fonseca (singer) and Bacilos, as well as rock musicians such as Juanes and pop musicians as Shakira. Vallenato, who emerged in the early twentieth century in Valledupar, and have come to symbolize the folk music of Colombia.
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Every year in April, Colombia holds one of the most important musical festivals in the country: the Vallenato Legend Festival. The festival holds contests for best accordion player. Once every decade, the "King of Kings" accordion competition takes place, where winners of the previous festivals compete for the highest possible award for a vallenato accordion player: the "Pilonera Mayor" prize. This is the world's largest competitive accordion festival.
Czech Republic.
Accordion is often played at traditional Czech pubs, such as U Flekú, Prague.
Mexico.
Norteño heavily relies on the accordion; it is a genre related to polka. Ramón Ayala, known in Mexico as the "King of the Accordion", is a norteño musician. Cumbia, which features the accordion, is also popular with musicians such as Celso Piña, creating a more contemporary style. U.S.-born Mexican musician Julieta Venegas incorporates the sound of the instrument into rock, pop and folk. She was influenced by her fellow Chicanos Los Lobos who also use the music of the accordion.
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North Korea.
According to Barbara Demick in "Nothing to Envy", the accordion is known as "the people's instrument" and all North Korean teachers were expected to learn the accordion.
United States.
Accordions are played in Tejano music, Cajun and Creole music, zydeco, klezmer, and polka.
During the post-World War II era from the 1940s to the 1960s, accordions were widely used in the United States for performances of traditional Western classical music within the configuration of large free-reed symphonic orchestras both in live performances on the concert hall stage and in phonograph recordings. Included among the leading accordion orchestras were: The New York Accordion Symphony in New York City, The Springfield Accordion Orchestra in Massachusetts, The Houston Accordion Symphony in Houston, Texas and The Philadelphia Accordion Orchestra in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prominent orchestra members included: Joe Biviano (President of the American Accordionists Association) Carmen Carrozza, Orlando Di Girolamo (President of the American Symphony Society), Tony Mecca (who collaborated with Leonard Bernstein), Angelo Di Pippo (jazz accordionist and arranger for Robert Merrill), John Serry Sr. and Alfonso Veltri (Director of the National Conservatory of Music). By the 1960s recordings by such orchestras were even praised for their high level of musicality in "The Billboard" magazine.
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Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals. Such machines may be called AIs.
High-profile applications of AI include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google Search); recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix); virtual assistants (e.g., Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa); autonomous vehicles (e.g., Waymo); generative and creative tools (e.g., ChatGPT and AI art); and superhuman play and analysis in strategy games (e.g., chess and Go). However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it's not labeled AI anymore."
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Various subfields of AI research are centered around particular goals and the use of particular tools. The traditional goals of AI research include learning, reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, natural language processing, perception, and support for robotics. General intelligence—the ability to complete any task performed by a human on an at least equal level—is among the field's long-term goals. To reach these goals, AI researchers have adapted and integrated a wide range of techniques, including search and mathematical optimization, formal logic, artificial neural networks, and methods based on statistics, operations research, and economics. AI also draws upon psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, and other fields.
Artificial intelligence was founded as an academic discipline in 1956, and the field went through multiple cycles of optimism throughout its history, followed by periods of disappointment and loss of funding, known as AI winters. Funding and interest vastly increased after 2012 when deep learning outperformed previous AI techniques. This growth accelerated further after 2017 with the transformer architecture, and by the early 2020s many billions of dollars were being invested in AI and the field experienced rapid ongoing progress in what has become known as the AI boom. The emergence of advanced generative AI in the midst of the AI boom and its ability to create and modify content exposed several unintended consequences and harms in the present and raised concerns about the risks of AI and its long-term effects in the future, prompting discussions about regulatory policies to ensure the safety and benefits of the technology.
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Goals.
The general problem of simulating (or creating) intelligence has been broken into subproblems. These consist of particular traits or capabilities that researchers expect an intelligent system to display. The traits described below have received the most attention and cover the scope of AI research.
Reasoning and problem-solving.
Early researchers developed algorithms that imitated step-by-step reasoning that humans use when they solve puzzles or make logical deductions. By the late 1980s and 1990s, methods were developed for dealing with uncertain or incomplete information, employing concepts from probability and economics.
Many of these algorithms are insufficient for solving large reasoning problems because they experience a "combinatorial explosion": They become exponentially slower as the problems grow. Even humans rarely use the step-by-step deduction that early AI research could model. They solve most of their problems using fast, intuitive judgments. Accurate and efficient reasoning is an unsolved problem.
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Knowledge representation.
Knowledge representation and knowledge engineering allow AI programs to answer questions intelligently and make deductions about real-world facts. Formal knowledge representations are used in content-based indexing and retrieval, scene interpretation, clinical decision support, knowledge discovery (mining "interesting" and actionable inferences from large databases), and other areas.
A knowledge base is a body of knowledge represented in a form that can be used by a program. An ontology is the set of objects, relations, concepts, and properties used by a particular domain of knowledge. Knowledge bases need to represent things such as objects, properties, categories, and relations between objects; situations, events, states, and time; causes and effects; knowledge about knowledge (what we know about what other people know); default reasoning (things that humans assume are true until they are told differently and will remain true even when other facts are changing); and many other aspects and domains of knowledge.
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Among the most difficult problems in knowledge representation are the breadth of commonsense knowledge (the set of atomic facts that the average person knows is enormous); and the sub-symbolic form of most commonsense knowledge (much of what people know is not represented as "facts" or "statements" that they could express verbally). There is also the difficulty of knowledge acquisition, the problem of obtaining knowledge for AI applications.
Planning and decision-making.
An "agent" is anything that perceives and takes actions in the world. A rational agent has goals or preferences and takes actions to make them happen. In automated planning, the agent has a specific goal. In automated decision-making, the agent has preferences—there are some situations it would prefer to be in, and some situations it is trying to avoid. The decision-making agent assigns a number to each situation (called the "utility") that measures how much the agent prefers it. For each possible action, it can calculate the "expected utility": the utility of all possible outcomes of the action, weighted by the probability that the outcome will occur. It can then choose the action with the maximum expected utility.
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