История и развитие города Уднадатта

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal tribes visited the place where Oodnadatta is located as a reliable source of water on their trade route; there was no settlement at Oodnadatta itself. John McDouall Stuart explored the region in 1859. His route was generally followed by the surveyors of the Overland Telegraph Line, completed in 1872. Alfred Giles referred to a place called the Yellow Waterhole, or Angle Pole, later known as Hookey's Waterhole and The Peake, near Oodnadatta.

Angle Pole is the point near Oodnadatta where the direction of the telegraph line changed to a more northerly direction. It is near the Peake cattle station, also known as "The Peake", or Freeling Springs. Alfred Giles refers to his only meeting with the explorer Ernest Giles (no relation) at "the Peake" in the 1870s. Many of the cameleers settled in Oodnadatta and Marree, some with families and some marrying, mainly Aboriginal women. In the 1880s, Angle Pole was identified as the proposed terminus for the extension of the Great Northern Railway. When the railway was built, a town was established here, and in October 1890 was proclaimed a government township and renamed Oodnadatta. In 1889, Angle Pole was also proposed as the south eastern terminus of a land grant railway from Roebuck Bay in Western Australia. This railway was proposed by a London syndicate and would have been about 1000 miles (1600 km) long, with the wider 1600 gauge. However this was never built. The town remained the terminus of the Great Northern Railway until the line was extended to Alice Springs in 1929 and the railway's name was changed to the Central Australia Railway. The railway was built with narrow gauge (1067) tracks, and train traffic was frequently disrupted by washouts and other damage to the trackbed, leading to a slow and unreliable service. The railway through Oodnadatta was closed and a new standard gauge line was built to the west, bypassing Oodnadatta, and opening in October 1980.

Oodnadatta's busiest era was World War II when the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force set up local facilities to service troop trains and aircraft en route to Darwin.

Tourist traffic along the Oodnadatta Track and the mining industry keep the village alive. The Aboriginal school is the biggest employer. In 2023, a reverse osmosis water desalination plant was installed in the town, giving it access to treated drinking tap water for the first time. The town's drinking water supply was previously untreated groundwater from the Great Artesian Basin, which the state government warned residents to avoid as early as the 1980s due to the risk of the rare life threatening brain infection primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.

Oodnadatta can be reached by an unsealed road from Coober Pedy or via the unsealed Oodnadatta Track from Marree to Marla or from the north via Finke/Aputula, NT (on the "Old Ghan Heritage Trail"). The Pink Roadhouse (so called because it is painted bright pink) provides petrol, a general store, meals, a variety of accommodation, and post office facilities. The Transcontinental Hotel, built in the 1890s, is on the same side of the road, as is the caravan park. Oodnadatta is serviced twice weekly by the Coober Pedy Oodnadatta One Day Mail Run. The OKA mail truck also carries some general freight and passengers. The air strip adjacent to the town, originally built during World War II, has a sealed surface.

The historic Oodnadatta railway station, now a museum, is listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.

The Oodnadatta Aboriginal School, located in Kutaya Terrace, is a school operated by the Government of South Australia offering education from Reception to Year 12. In 2018, the school had a total enrolment of 14 students, of whom 86% were indigenous, and a teaching staff of three.

Oodnadatta has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) and has also recorded the highest reliably measured maximum temperature in Australia: 50.7 °C (123.3 F) on 2 January 1960. This record stood unequalled until 13 January 2022, when a temperature of 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) was measured in Onslow, Western Australia, thus equalling Oodnadatta's record. This is also the highest temperature recorded in the South Australia. A higher temperature was recorded at Cloncurry in 1889; however, this has since been shown to have been recorded in a non standard enclosure and likely to have been considerably cooler than first believed. There is a large sign in Oodnadatta claiming the town is "The driest town, the driest state of the driest Continent".

Oodnadatta is located within the federal Division of Grey, the state electoral district of Stuart, the Pastoral Unincorporated Area of South Australia and the state's Far North region.

The name Oodnadatta has been used as a name for a crater on the planet Mars.