An early spelling of the town was Yanta. In 1866 the district was known as part of the Tattawappa and Yanta Run. Yunta township was established in 1887 after the discovery of gold at the nearby diggings at Teetulpa and
Waukaringa, when more than 5000 miners made their way through here. From the early 1890s the village was a small but busy
railway town on the narrow-gauge line between
Cockburn and
Port Augusta (Cockburn being the town on the state border to which trains from
Broken Hill,
New South Wales brought silver-lead-zinc ore concentrates). From 1934, Yunta was the base for the famed outback trucking and mail contractor Henry Edgar (Harry) Ding. Today Yunta is a small service centre for travellers and the surrounding properties. Yunta also provides an alternative route to the
Flinders Ranges and beyond. The natural gas fields at Gidgealpa and
Moomba have resulted in improved access roads to South Australia's arid north-east region. ==Facilities==