Atlas of South Australia Preface
The Atlas of South Australia has been four years in the making and several more in the planning. Like the plans that led to the establishment of a British settle in South Australia in 1836, the original concept took seven years to materialise. But whereas the colonisation plan of Edward Gibbon Wakefield was formulated in a London gaol, the idea of publishing a new atlas of South Australia emerged within the offices of the South Australian Department of Lands - the arm of government that became the principal custodian of the Wakefieldian ideal of orderly, progressive expansion of land settlement.
Origins
In 1979 the State of Western Australia celebrated 150 years of European settlement. Among the State's commemorative activities was the publication of an atlas by the Education and Lands and Surveys Departments. Officers of the South Australian Department of Lands were aware of the Western Australian project and proposed a similar venture for South Australia's 150th anniversary in 1986. In May 1979 the then Premier, Mr. D. J. Corcoran, approved the commencement of a feasibility study on an atlas of South Australia. The work was undertaken by a small committee within the Department of Lands, with the then Controller of Drafting Services, Mr. W. R. Marchant, as Chairman. Mr Marchant held consultations in Perth with the group responsible for producing the Western Australian atlas and with a similar group in Melbourne who were preparing the rather more ambitious Atlas of Victoria, which was published in September 1982. From these discussions the view emerged that editorial oversight of contents, map design and text should be sought from university geographers, while the very substantial drafting task could best be carried out using the skills of drafting staff in several State government departments, especially in the Mapping Branch of the Department of Lands.
The Marchant committee submitted its Report on Preparation of a Resource Atlas for the Sesquicentenary of South Australia in March 1980. During 1981, as the South Australia Jubilee 150 Board developed its plans for the State's sesquicentenary, the task of bringing the atlas to fruition was passed to Dr John Tregenza, Chairman of the Board's Historical Publications Sub-Committee. Dr Tregenza consulted with the prospective co-editors, Trevor Griffin and Murray McCaskill, and in 1981 formed the Atlas of South Australia Working Party with representation from the Department of Lands, the Education Department, the Department of Environment and Planning, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The Working Party held a number of public meetings, seeking advice on the possible contents of the atlas and the manner of its presentation, and the support of potential specialist contributors. The celebratory nature of the 1986 publication date suggested that a strong historical component for the atlas contents would be appropriate. In South Australia, cartographic records, especially of land tenure, are more readily available than they are in most other Australian States, and this offered the promise of making much little-known material accessible to a wider audience. Entirely new maps could also be generated from the wealth of the State's historical statistics.
In 1982 the Working Party, with enlarged membership, became the Jubilee 150 Atlas of South Australia Committee, which was responsible to the Jubilee 150 Board. It made an early decision that the choice of contents - whether map, picture or text - should rest with the editors.
In October 1982 the South Australian Cabinet endorsed the atlas project in its first list of approved Jubilee 150 activities and made funds available for the appointment of a research assistant from early 1983. Meanwhile, the Department of Lands, the Department of Mines and Energy and the Department of Environment and Planning all agreed to make drafting staff available for the atlas.
Predecessors
Before European settlement was fifty years old, and before the population exceeded 310,000, South Australia had seen the publication of no less than three atlases - one by a commercial publisher and two by the Surveyor-General's Office. The frequency of publication attests to the interest of the South Australian public in their newly occupied land. These atlases contain little more than place-names, the boundaries of the survey units -Hundreds and Counties - and some topographic information including railways, roads and a sparse representation of physical features.
Since the production of the Official Atlas of South Australia in 1885 there have been at least five publications in which atlas scale maps have been a major component. Four of these five deal exclusively with the metropolitan area. Technically, the most ambitious was the Report on the Metropolitan Area of Adelaide, 1962, essentially an analytical and descriptive atlas of the existing and proposed future character of the metropolitan area. It was the most impressive, and probably the most expensive, Parliamentary Paper ever printed in South Australia. The Environments of South Australia Planners Atlas, published in 1982, contained thirteen maps of components of the physical environment, but the map scale of 1:4 million gave an awkward book shape and the atlas was not widely promoted. Computer technology provided the basis for the production of two atlases of Adelaide following the censuses of 1971 and 1981. The later atlas, published in two colours, was part of a national series covering seven of the nation's urban areas; it was well promoted, attracted much public interest, and rapidly sold out. An earlier low-budget Socio-economic Atlas of Adelaide based on the 1971 census appealed to a widespread interest in the social differentiation and status of residential areas and soon demonstrated its value of those involved in social work or the provision of social and community services.
The Atlas of South Australia is the fifth atlas of an Australian State to appear in recent years. The editors and cartographers learned a great deal from the work of their predecessors in the Atlas of Tasmania (1965), Western Australia - an Atlas of Human Endeavour, 1829-1979 (1979), the Queensland Resources Atlas (1980) and the Atlas of Victoria (1982). An atlas of New South Wales is in preparation, and its publication in 1986 will complete a quarter of a century of thematic atlas mapping in which all Australian States have participated.
There is also much to admire in the ongoing Atlas of Australian Resources, now in its third series. Even more than the producers of State atlases, its designers have had to grapple with the most intractable problem that Australian geography poses to cartographers - the representation of extreme variations in the density of human activity from the metropolitan areas to the 'settled districts' and the 'outback'.
The study of content and method in thematic atlas production was not confined to Australian shores. In this part of the globe New Zealand was the first to produce a one-volume thematic atlas with A Descriptive Atlas of New Zealnd (1959) and its much enlarged successor, the New Zealand Atlas (1976). At least ten American States published thematic atlases during the 1970s including the California Water Atlas (1978-79). These and other regional and national atlases all provided inspiration.
Format
The sequence of themes and topics adopted in the Atlas of South Australia may appear unconventional in that physical features do not appear first. Section 1, 'The Course of Settlement', is a retrospective view of the changes in South Australian land and society, particularly since 1936. A major component of this section is the series of 'time slice' maps at six dates between 1850 and 1985, depicting, as far as records permit, changes in the distribution of land tenure, communications and settlement. Section 2 'Environment and Resources', begins with aspects of the State's natural endowment and proceeds to selected environmental changes, resource utilisation and natural hazards. Section 3, 'Production', treats some of the more traditional elements of economic geography, with the emphasis on present-day distribution patterns but with some backward glances to those of fifty and a hundred years ago. Section 4, 'South Australians', shows both past and present demographic patterns, especially those revealed by the 1981 census. It examines South Australians at work and in unemployment, on their journeys to and from work, in the polling booth on election days, and, for country people, where they purchase goods and services. The final section, 'Regional Maps', includes a completely new series of topographic maps to which the long-established technique of hill shading has been applied, using as source material the latest satellite imagery. This allows the complex terrain of some of the remote areas to be represented with a degree of realism and fine detail not previously achieved on maps of South Australia on this scale.
Apart from the few reproductions of early maps, all the maps and diagrams have been specially prepared for this atlas, and most are completely original. Because all maps are only idealised representations of the features on the earth's surface, they involve selection, That selectivity varies according to both topic and scale, and involves choice in both generalisation and symbolisation.
It is not the editor's intention to convey any single 'message' about South Australia or to confine the reader's understanding to a limited number of themes. The selection of topics inevitably reflects the editors' judgement concerning what is worth mapping, and they hope that their choice will provide readers with both reinforcement of the known and discovery of the new. However, they appreciate that the views of others may not always coincide with their own, and that such views are certain to change in the future, just as they have changed in the past. We may, for example, consider the different ideas of distance and area experienced by a bushwalker and by someone flying overhead in a jet aircraft. In this sense, the cartogram provides a less familiar representation of the distribution of the State's voters, but it is just as accurate as the more conventional scale map on the same page.
The content, design and layout of the five sections also aim to provide a balance between consistency and diversity. Cross-referencing within the text has been kept to a minimum, and the Contents and Index pages provide sufficient information to allow the comparison of materials in different parts of the atlas. Similarly, although each section has been given a distinctive graphic character, it is still easy to compare maps in different sections. The organisation of the atlas should assist equally those who seek its information occasionally and those who wish to read its contents in sequence.
The Maps
Intentionally, the maps vary greatly in size and detail. They focus on three particular levels: the entire State, the 'settled districts', and metropolitan Adelaide. Although the boundaries of each have varied over time, the second and third levels pose the more serious problem in definition. The concept of the settled districts is reinforced daily in weather forecasts, but no single appropriate boundary exists. Some important statistics are collected for the original survey units,Counties and Hundreds. Other data are collected for Local Government Areas (LGA), i.e. Population 1881. The extent of the Counties and Hundreds has grown over time, but the constituent units have suffered few amendments to their boundaries, and the Hundreds, provide a finely meshed network of units varying little in size. The pattern of LGAs is not quite as extensive, exhibits far greater variation in the size of its units, and has been subject to numerous divisions and amalgamations. As neither type of statistical unit is truly adequate, the editors have used both according to the nature of the material mapped.
The definition of metropolitan Adelaide is equally difficult, and forced the editors to use both their own definition of the continuously built-up area and that of the all-encompassing Adelaide Statistical Division, which includes areas of semi-urban and rural character.
PROJECTION
With few exceptions, the thematic maps of the State and settled districts use the Simple Conic projection with standard parallels at 18° and 36° south. Thematic maps of Adelaide and its region, together with the larger scale topographic maps, use the Transverse Mercator projection, while other maps in the final section use the Lambert Conformal Conic.
SCALE
In order to provide appropriate representation of the wide variety of topics, many different scales have been employed. The map scale identifies the ratio between the distance separating two points on the map and their distance apart on the earth's surface. Thus, a scale of 1:5 000 000 (1:5M) indicates that a distance of 1 mm on the map represents an actual distance of
5 000 000 mm; that is, 5 kilometres. The largest maps of the State are shown at a scale of 1:5M, while those for the settled districts are shown at 1:3M. With one intentional exception, all such maps appear on the right-hand page to aid easier comparison. On those maps where measurement of approximate distances may be desired, the scale has been provided in both graphic and numerical form, but elsewhere only the numerical form is given. Although metric measurements are standard, imperial measures have been used where they are historically appropriate.
SYMBOLS
The cartographic methods employed aim at the same mixture of consistency and variety. Most maps employ 'point' symbols, often variously ornamented, to identify the locations of single entities. Frequently these 'point symbols - usually circles - also vary in size, either in a few discrete steps or continuously, to indicate the relative quantities of the phenomena concerned. Such symbols may also vary in colour to portray some other dimensional characteristic, usually percentages, or may be subdivided in the form of a 'pie' to identify their component parts. Line symbols, although they exhibit less variety, duplicate some of the characteristics of point symbols.
Most maps show examples of precisely defined areas given identity by colour and/or texture, and occasionally such areas overlap. In a few cases, where the phenomena are presumed to vary in value continuously across the earth, lines of equal value have been used, similar to the contours used to show the elevation of the land surface on large-scale topographic maps. A set of colour tints is then applied between these lines to emphasise the spatial variation in the mapped values. Usually, however, data are available only for certain sets of collection units, such as Hundreds or LGAs. In such cases the average value for each unit is considered to represent its total area, so that values change only at unit boundaries. It should be noted that throughout this atlas, the use of the term average refers to the arithmetic mean. The set of average values for all units is divided into categories or 'classes' of an appropriate size on the continuous scale of the measure concerned. Each category is then allocated a tint within a colour range in which the highest intensity relates to greatest concentration of the phenomenon and the lowest intensity to the lowest concentration.
LEGEND
Although some of the simplest maps need no information other than their titles to identify their content, most require an individual set of definitions for the symbols used. This is provided by the legend, a simple lexicon that acts as a key to the vocabulary of the map symbols. In many cases the legend has been given a dual role, allowing it to provide further supplementary information on the topic. A specific case involves the type of legend used for the choropleth maps, and on occasion elsewhere. Such maps portray the relative variation in the mapped topic, but provide no information concerning its absolute numerical dimension. For this reason the legends have been designed to provide information on both the primary relative dimension and on the secondary absolute dimension. A few other maps have been designed to portray these two dimensions in more obvious coexistence.
STATISTICS
Some map users may be disturbed by the fact that the most recent statistics used in this atlas will soon become dated. For example, much use has been made of data from the 1981 census, although as the final pages of the atlas go to press South Australians are completing their forms for the census of 30 June 1986. Certainly, specific numerical quantities and ratios shown on the maps are 'snap-shots' taken on a specific date, but the patterns that the maps display tend to change rather slowly over time.
Similarly, the patterns shown on maps dealing with topics related to farming rely heavily upon the data for the season 1983-84. To the extend that the farming community ever has 'good' years, that was such a one, both climatically and economically. More recent falls in farm commodity prices may be expected to lead to changes in the value of output as well as in the estimated value of farm land, but the patterns shown on these maps will be far slower to change.
REGIONAL NAMES
Many of the regional names used in this atlas, particularly in the pages on Geology, Landforms and Regional maps derive from local or colloquial or scientific usage. They are 'unofficial' in that they have not been approved by the Geographical Names Board of South Australia. The contributors do not wish the regional names they have used to be regarded as immutable or their boundaries to be firmly demarcated. Nevertheless, the names indicate the location and frequently the character of the areas under discussion.
Appreciation
The long preparation of a complex book such as the Atlas of South Australia has left the editors in the debt of many people - cartographers, contributors, editorial staff, book designers, anonymous referees and printers. Few academic geographers have the opportunity to present their ideas in full-colour printing, and it has been our privilege to have worked with Rod Venning and Brian McLachlan and the talented and enthusiastic group of cartographers assembled from three government departments. The commitment of the South Australian Government in allocating the time of these officers is a measure of its confidence in the project. To the many contributors who have written parts of the text or advised on the maps, we offer our sincere thanks. They are listed separately under the headings 'Contributors' and 'Acknowledgments'. The restrictions imposed by limited space meant that not all the work they submitted could be used, and they accepted our decisions with good grace.
The staff of the South Australian Government Printing Division responded with skill and enthusiasm to the diverse demands placed on them in the course of the production of the atlas. The book designers Peter and Heidi Goeldi produced imaginative solutions to many problems of layout and typography, and worked unusual hours in the final preparation before each signature was printed.
Four people deserve our special thanks. John Tregenza, as Chairman of the Atlas Committee, provided invaluable advice on many aspects of the text and illustrations, and did much to facilitate the production and publication of the atlas. Steve Jackson, as Research Assistant, gave care and enthusiasm to a multitude of exacting tasks. Jenny Walker, as Managing Editor, scrutinised all components with an eagle eye for error and inconsistency and co-ordinated the production schedule, often under great pressure. Don Woolman, as Government Printer, brought vigour and decision to one of the most complex book production tasks undertaken in South Australia.
Finally we wish to acknowledge the support and tolerance of our families and university colleagues during our lengthy preoccupation with the Atlas of South Australia. We hope that its publication and reception will vindicate their trust and forbearance.
Trevor Griffin
Murray McCaskill
July 1986
