# @natgeo on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CPWl1elNObO
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/11684497-natgeo-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/539d0cb2d5.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-05-26T22:30:20.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** National Geographic (@NatGeo) — https://gondola.cc/NatGeo

## Caption

Photo by tamaramerino_photography / Coober Pedy is an unconventional town in the Australian Outback where most of the population lives in underground houses called dugouts. Life takes place under the vast and lonely land itself, as most residents go after its wealth of opal, a valuable gemstone. Temperatures in Coober Pedy vary between -2 and 50 degrees Celsius (122°F)—one of the reasons why people choose to live underground, which provides them with an average temperature of 23°C (73°F) year-round. Italian immigrant Tony dreams of carving a luxurious house out of this underground space. About 60 percent of the town's residents are originally from Europe, having migrated to the area after World War II.

This photo is part of my series Underland, which documents communities living underground or in cave homes in different countries around the world. And each of the communities I’ve documented—from Australia and Spain to the United States — have their own sociocultural, environmental, economic, or religious reasons for living underground. Follow me on tamaramerino_photography for more photos. 
#caves #underground #underland #landscape

## Stats

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## Tags

underland, underground, caves, landscape

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