In a remote area of ​​South Australia, there is an underground town. This unique town has underground houses, churches, bookstores, museums and is home to about 1,000 people.

Coober Pedy is a town   in South Australia, about 846 km north of Adelaide. It is also known as the opal capital of the world because about 70% of the mineral is mined here.

About 150 million years ago, the Coober Pedy area was covered by ocean. As the sea receded, climate change caused the water table to drop. Silica was deposited in underground caves and cracks, forming opal over millions of years.

The area was originally named the Stuart Opal Fields, after John McDouall Stuart, the first European explorer to reach the area in 1858.

In 1920, the area had to be renamed to establish a post office. The name Stuart Range was not suitable because of its similarity to the Stewart Range in Washington State, USA. The quarrymen chose the new name Coober Pedy, an Aboriginal term meaning “White Man in the Hole”.

There are hundreds of active opal mines in the town and it is estimated that there are several hundred thousand mine shafts scattered around the area after a century of mining.

Miners typically drill down vertically into the ground, before digging horizontally to the sides in search of opals. They use machines to suck the rock up to the surface, creating giant mounds scattered around the town.

In the summer, the temperature in Coober Pedy often exceeds 40 degrees Celsius, the humidity rarely exceeds 20% and the sky is usually cloudless. To escape the scorching temperatures here, locals and miners have come up with a way to live underground. They dig tunnels and build houses in the ground. There is also a Serbian Orthodox church built by Serbians in 1993, a bookshop and an underground museum that allows visitors to experience the life of a miner.

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Although the temperature outside was brutally H๏τ, reaching 50 degrees Celsius, underground it was only around 24 degrees Celsius. Finding cooler shelter helped the miners stay in Coober Pedy.

Currently, the town of Coober Pedy has about 2,000 residents, of which about 80% of the town’s population lives in underground houses.

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Despite living underground, the homes of the people of Coober Pedy are very modern and not as spartan as some people initially imagine. The underground homes have all the amenities of normal homes, from internet to electricity and running water. The only difference is the material of the walls and the lack of natural sunlight.

The uniqueness of this South Australian town has attracted many curious tourists. So now the people of Coober Pedy are also rich from tourism.

In addition to underground houses, the town of Coober Pedy also has shops, bars and restaurants above ground to serve the needs of residents and visitors.