In the early days of European settlement in South Australia, land was released in the colony for farming in an orderly manner by the government. Initial land sales were made as a prerequisite to the founding of the colony, with "preliminary land orders" being made to a total value of £35,000 prior to the 1837 settlement. A preliminary land order entitled the buyer to a town block and an section of rural land which was to be chosen by the individual following the earliest land survey after settlement. The initial town survey of Adelaide was completed in March 1837. By February 1839 the surrounding country from coast to
foothills, as far south as
O'Halloran Hill and north to present-day
Grand Junction Road, had been surveyed into country sections, with between a quarter and a half having already been claimed by the early investors or purchased by early settlers. The country sections delineated in the early land surveys generally formed the hundred sections when the first hundreds were proclaimed in 1846 (in the counties of
Adelaide and
Hindmarsh). From this time, the government surveyor systematically established new areas to be released by creating the boundaries of a county, and then dividing that into hundreds of approximately the same size. Outside the initial survey area centred on Adelaide, hundreds were surveyed into sections of varying sizes with the intention that the section would support a single viable farm. with the 21 extra names unused today due to either renaming or failure to adopt proposed names.
Removal of German-origin names In 1916, during the
First World War, ten hundreds with names of German origin (Basedow, Homburg, Krichauff, North Rhine, Paech, Pflaum, Scherk, Schomburgk, South Rhine, Von Doussa) were proposed for renaming with
Aboriginal names, but this only occurred for the hundreds of Paech and Pflaum, which became the hundreds of
Cannawigara and
Geegeela respectively. The remaining eight hundreds were
renamed in 1918 with names derived from Allied commanders or battles. The hundreds of Basedow, Homburg, Krichauff, North Rhine, Scherk, Schomburgk, South Rhine and Von Doussa became, respectively, the hundreds of
French,
Haig,
Beatty,
Jellicoe,
Sturdee,
Maude,
Jutland and
Allenby. == List of counties ==