Central Southern Australia.

GMT + 9.5 (GMT + 10.5 from first Sunday in October to first Sunday in April).

983,480 sq km (379,724 sq miles).

1.6 million (official estimate 2007).

1.6 per sq km.

Adelaide. Population: 1,146,100 (2006).

Except for the state capital of Adelaide, South Australia is sparsely inhabited - it is four times the area of the UK. It is the country's driest state, a region of rocky plains and desert landscape broken by the fertile wine-growing areas, which include the Barossa Valley.

South Australia stretches upwards to the Northern Territory, eastwards to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and westwards to Western Australia. The countryside ranges from the beach resorts of the Adelaide suburbs to the vast expanses of isolated, semi-desert outback; from the craggy mountains of Flinders Ranges to the meandering Murray River. Offshore is the popular Kangaroo Island. Adelaide nestles in the foothills of Mount Lofty Ranges.