INTRODUCTION

In 1998, the former Departments of Geography and Environmental Studies were merged to create a Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies, which subsequently lost its departmental status in 2002 as part of a University of Adelaide restructuring process. In 2002, Schools became the main administrative units across the University, each comprising a number of ‘Disciplines’ rather than Departments. At the start of 2011 the Discipline of Geographical and Environmental Studies was renamed to ‘Geography, Environment and Population’ to better reflect its current teaching and research focus.

However, the origins of the Discipline go back to the start of the last century. A special volume of the South Australian Geographical Journal documented a hundred years of geography teaching in South Australia and this chapter draws heavily on papers from that special volume together with publications relating to environmental studies which started much later as a discipline of study than geography but then became linked to geography in a number of Australian universities including Adelaide. In addition, university records and archives have been consulted in an attempt to provide a comprehensive history of the Discipline of Geography, Environment and Population at the University of Adelaide.