Coober Pedy is a town and opal mining field located at the edge of the Great Victoria Desert,
in the central portion of South Australia. Coober Pedy is known as the Opal Capital of the World - Australia
produces 95 per cent of the world's precious opals and 99 per cent of black opals. The first opals were discovered
here in 1911 by miners searching for gold.
As more miners moved into the area following World War I, they began building their dwellings below ground in "dugouts" to
escape the year-round extremes in temperature - the town's name derives from an Aboriginal term meaning "white man in a hole."
During the 1960s and 1970s the world opal market boomed, and Coober Pedy expanded into the modern mining town it remains today.
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COOBER PEDY