[1] The cemetery sits on land that was wrested from the Germans by the Canadian Corps in October and November 1916 during the final phases of the Battles of the Somme.
Most of the men buried at Adanac are British and Canadian soldiers who fell between September and November 1916 in the fields north of the village of Courcelette.
Following the Somme, the British occupied the nearby villages of Miraumont and Pys on 24–25 February 1917 after the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line.
The Germans reoccupied the area on 25 March 1918 at the beginning of the Spring Offensive until the British recaptured it on 24 August 1918 during the Second Battle of the Somme.
It contains the burials from the battlefields around Courcelette and the relocated graves from smaller cemeteries surrounding Miraumont, including: