Adelaide Park Lands in the context of "Built-up area"

An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbanism, the term "urban area" contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets; in urban sociology or urban anthropology, it often contrasts with natural environment.

The development of earlier predecessors of modern urban areas during the urban revolution of the 4th millennium BCEled to the formation of human civilization and ultimately to modern urban planning, which along with other human activities such as exploitation of natural resources has led to a human impact on the environment.

Adelaide (/ˈædɪleɪd/ AD-il-ayd; Kaurna: Tarndanya [ˈd̪̥aɳɖaɲa]) is the capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre; the demonym Adelaidean is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The traditional owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna, with the name Tarndanya referring to the area of the city centre and surrounding Park Lands, in the Kaurna language. Adelaide is situated on the Adelaide Plains north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, between the Gulf St Vincent in the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east. Its metropolitan area encompasses over 430 suburbs, extending 96 km (60 mi) from Gawler in the north to Sellicks Beach in the south and 20 km (12 mi) from the western coast to the eastern foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges.

Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, wife of King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for the only freely settled British province in Australia, distinguishing it from Australia's penal colonies. Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide's founding fathers, designed the city centre and chose its location close to the River Torrens. Light's design, now listed as national heritage, set out the city centre in a grid layout known as "Light's Vision", interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by park lands. Colonial Adelaide was noted for its leading examples of religious freedom and progressive political reforms and became known as the "City of Churches" due to its diversity of faiths. It was Australia's third-most populous city until the postwar era.

William Light (27 April 1786 – 6 October 1839) was a British military officer and colonial administrator. He was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of the colony's capital, Adelaide, and for designing the layout of its streets, six city squares, gardens and the figure-eight Adelaide Park Lands, in a plan later sometimes referred to as Light's Vision.

Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka (previously spelt Mullawirraburka), and numbered as Park 14, is a recreation park located in the East Park Lands of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. There is an artificial lake with rowboats for hire, a café, children's playground and rose garden, and the Adelaide Bowling Club is on the Dequetteville Terrace side. The O-Bahn passes underneath it, to emerge at the western side opposite Grenfell Street.

Before and in the early days of the colonisation of South Australia, the eastern park lands were used as camping grounds for the local Kaurna people and later people from other nearby Aboriginal peoples, such as the Ngarrindjeri.

A green belt or greenbelt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which have a linear character and may run through an urban area instead of around it. In essence, a green belt is an invisible line designating a border around a certain area, preventing development of the area and allowing wildlife to return and be established.

The more general term in the United States is green space or greenspace, which may be a very small area such as a park.