Beltana is a town 540 kilometres (336 mi) north of Adelaide, South Australia. Beltana is known for continuing to exist long after the reasons for its existence had ceased. The town’s history began in the 1870s with the advent of copper mining in the area, construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line and The Ghan railway and began to decline in 1941 with the beginning of coal mining at Leigh Creek. The fortune of the town was sealed by the 1983 realignment of the main road away from the town. The town, adjacent cemetery and railway structures are now part of a designated State Heritage Area declared in 1987.