Salisbury, South Australia

Salisbury is a northern suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. It is the seat of the City of Salisbury, and in the South Australian Legislative Assembly electoral district of Ramsay and the Australian House of Representatives divisions of Wakefield and Port Adelaide. The suburb is a service area for the City of Salisbury district, with an abundance of parklands, shops, cafes and restaurants. Parabanks Shopping Centre is also located in Salisbury, which includes Harris Scarfe and Big W as its signature retailers.

The City of Salisbury is situated 25 kilometres north of Adelaide. It covers 161 square kilometres stretching from the beaches at Gulf St Vincent to the Adelaide Hills. The terrain is mostly flat with the Little Para River winding its way through the district to the sea.

History
Salisbury was founded when John Harvey began selling town allotments in 1848, from land he had purchased along the Little Para River in the previous year. The town was named after Salisbury in the United Kingdom which was close to his wife's hometown. Salisbury started its life as a service centre for the surrounding wheat and hay farms. Salisbury Post Office opened around March 1850. It grew slowly (from a population of 400-500 in 1881) until 1940 when the establishment of an explosives and filling factory doubled the population almost overnight. The factory, which covered 4.5 square miles, was in production by mid 1942 and by January 1943 employed 6,500 persons producing 135,000 shells, bombs and mines weekly.