Coober Pedy is also renowned for its below-ground dwellings, called "dugouts", which are built in this fashion due to the scorching daytime heat.

The name "Coober Pedy" is thought to derive from the Kokatha-Barngarla term kupa-piti, which translates to "whitefellas' hole", but in 1975 the local Aboriginal people of the town adopted the name Umoona, which means "long life" and is also their name for the mulga tree.

[5] In July 1975, the local Aboriginal people of Coober Pedy adopted the name Umoona, which means "long life" and is also their name for the Acacia aneura, or mulga tree, which is plentiful in the area.

Coober Pedy is a small town about halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs,[10] in the Far North region of South Australia.

[13] Coober Pedy is situated on the edge of the erosional scarp of the Stuart Ranges, on beds of sandstone and siltstone 30 metres (100 ft) deep and topped with a stony, treeless desert.

Very little plant life exists in town due to the region's low rainfall, the high cost of water, and lack of topsoil.

A standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a similar price to building a house on the surface.

[citation needed] The town's water supply, managed by the District Council which operates a bore and associated treatment plant, comes from the Great Artesian Basin.

[20] Oral history suggests that Aboriginal people knew where opals were in the Coober Pedy area, but did not value them because food was more important.

[22] A 2016 thesis by M. Harding suggests "the small-scale and informal nature of the opal industry attracted Aboriginal people because of the level of workplace autonomy it provided", and it also accommodated their cultural practices.

While opal mining around the town had slumped in the early 1940s, it picked up after a local Aboriginal woman, Tottie Bryant, discovered a large deposit in 1945.

[25][23] Starting around the 1970s, mechanized opal mining became more common, allowing for faster and comparatively less dangerous shaft digging, tunnelling, and tailings removal.

In May 2009, South Australian Premier Mike Rann opened the $1.15 billion Prominent Hill Mine, 130 kilometres (81 mi) southeast of Coober Pedy.

[29] In August 2010, Rann opened the Cairn Hill iron ore/copper/gold mine operated by IMX Resources near Coober Pedy.

[citation needed] Coober Pedy today relies as much on tourism as the opal mining industry to provide the community with employment and sustainability.

[47] Under a previous name, it had begun as a newsletter called the Coober Pedy Times, which was first issued in August 1982,[48] itself continuing from a publication known as Opal Chips.

The local golf course – mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime heat – is completely free of grass, and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off.

Due to the town's isolation, to play matches the Saints must make round trips of over 900 kilometres (560 mi) to Roxby Downs, where the rest of the league's teams are located.

[57] A rare exhibition cachet, signed by Coober Pedy postmaster Alfred P. North, was discovered in Memphis, Tennessee, by philatelist David Saks on 3 February 2016.

Passengers on The Ghan are not usually allowed to disembark at Manguri unless they have prearranged transport, due to the siding's isolation and the extremely low temperatures at night.