🇦🇺 Australia
Adelaide
Adelaide (population 1.4 million — the capital of South Australia, founded 1836 as a planned city by the colonial surveyor Colonel William Light who designed the distinctive grid of streets surrounded by a ring of parklands (the Adelaide Park Lands — the 770-hectare green belt that completely encircles the central city (the most significant example of planned parkland surrounding an urban grid in Australian history)) is the most underrated city in Australia: overshadowed by Sydney and Melbourne in the popular imagination, Adelaide has quietly developed an identity built on exceptional food and wine (the Adelaide Central Market — the largest fresh produce market in the Southern Hemisphere, operating since 1869), world-class arts (the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Fringe — the second-largest arts festival in the world after Edinburgh), cycling culture (one of the most cycling-friendly cities in the Southern Hemisphere) and access to the most important wine regions in Australia (the Barossa Valley (the most important wine region in Australia — the home of Penfolds Grange, the most expensive and celebrated Australian wine), the Clare Valley (the finest Riesling outside Germany and Alsace), the McLaren Vale (the most complex Mediterranean-climate wine region in Australia) and the Adelaide Hills (the cool-climate sauvignon blanc and chardonnay region) are all within 1 hour of the city center). The 2.5km Rundle Mall pedestrian zone (the main shopping street since 1976 — the first pedestrian shopping street in Australia) and the Rundle Street café strip (the most important café culture street in Adelaide) connect the East End (the university, gallery and museum precinct) to the Central Market and Chinatown (the second-oldest Chinatown in Australia). Adelaide was repeatedly named the world's most liveable city in the 1990s–2000s by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and consistently ranks in the top 10 globally.