Lochiel

Lochiel is a small town in the Mid North of South Australia 125 km (78 mi) north of Adelaide.

Lochiel is a small town in the Mid North of South Australia 125 km (78 mi) north of Adelaide. The town lies beside on the western edge of Lake Bumbunga and at the eastern foot of the Hummocks Range. The Augusta Highway, a section of Highway 1, runs on a strip between the township and the lake, which dwarfs the former.

The Government Town of Lochiel was surveyed in 1869, closely following the proclamation of the cadastral Hundred of Cameron. The District Councils Act 1887 declared the township and the rest of the Hundred of Cameron a part of the District Council of Port Wakefield. The following year, lobbying by residents resulted in the Hundred of Cameron being moved from the control of Wakefield council into the jurisdiction of the District Council of Snowtown, cementing a close relationship between Lochiel and Snowtown rather than the more distant Port Wakefield.

In 1976, a resident of a farm at Bumbunga, just east of Lochiel, declared a secessionist micronation, the Province of Bumbunga. By 1999 it no longer existed.In the 2011 Australian census, the population of Lochiel and adjacent farming communities was 362.