Kingoonya, originally spelt Kingoonyah,[8] pronounced (/kɪŋɡuːnjə/ KING-goon-yə), was a small settlement, or township, now almost totally abandoned, in the central outback of the Australian state of South Australia.

From 1951, fewer railway workers were needed at such stations when trains were hauled by diesel-electric locomotives and when, three decades later, low-maintenance concrete sleepers and continuously welded rail were introduced.

Despite the low local population, the Kingoonya Hotel, popular with travellers and residents of several sheep and cattle farming ventures on the surrounding plains, remained in operation as of 2021[update], offering accommodation and food.

[citation needed] Kingoonya was one of the settlements that was affected by the British Government's nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s at Maralinga, when local indigenous people were forced off their traditional hunting lands.

Some settled for a decade or so a few kilometres north of Kingoonya in a makeshift hut settlement, where they had a meagre subsistence, their government payments supplemented by making and selling craft such as spears, boomerangs and woomera throwing sticks to passengers on passing trains.