Cleland National Park
national park in South Australia, Australia
Cleland National Park is a protected area in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, located about 22 kilometres (14 mi) south-east of Adelaide's city centre. It preserves a substantial expanse of natural bushland along the Adelaide Hills face, encompassing Mount Lofty Summit and Waterfall Gully. Classified as an IUCN Category II protected area, the park was formerly Cleland Conservation Park. In November 2021, it was merged with the adjoining Eurilla Conservation Park and upgraded to national park status.
Cleland National Park, like all reserves and parks in South Australia, is managed under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 and the Wilderness Protection Act 1992, with conservation responsibilities overseen by the Minister under the Crown Land Management Act 2009.
Geography
Cleland National Park is located in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, about 22 kilometres south-east of Adelaide city centre. It covers 1,036 hectares (2,560 acres), making it one of the largest areas of native vegetation along the Mount Lofty Ranges hills face. The park includes walking and cycling trails that provide access to wildlife habitats, cultural heritage sites, and views of the Adelaide Hills and surrounding areas.
The park's terrain features creeks, steep-sided gullies, eucalypt stringybark forests, and woodlands, which support a variety of habitats. It contains some of the last intact swamps and bogs in the region, providing habitat for endangered and endemic species such as the southern brown bandicoot and king fern.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cleland National Park” as national park in South Australia, Australia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as national park in South Australia, Australia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112581932. Authority coordinates are -34.968, 138.696. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1972, 1992 and 2009.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cleland National Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cleland National Park primary sources, Cleland National Park archive and Cleland research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Cleland National Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.