The Adelaide Oval is a sports stadium in Adelaide, South Australia. It is located between the central business district and North Adelaide and has a history which dates back to the 1870s. It is considered to be one of the most picturesque Test cricket grounds in Australia, if not the world. The oval is managed by the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA). The current curator is Les Burdett. It currently holds approximately 32,000 - 34,000 spectators.

Adelaide Oval is widely regarded as the most picturesque Test cricket ground in the world, with St Peter's Cathedral rising behind an elegant Edwardian scoreboard and Moreton Bay fig trees at the northern end, the Mount Lofty Ranges to the east, and nearby city skyline to the south. The playing arena is 191 x 127 metres.

The ground was established following the formation of the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) in 1871. The first of the surviving grandstands was the member's pavilion erected in 1882 and subsequently named the George Giffen Stand. A second public grandstand was erected to the south in 1889.

The mounds at the northern and southern ends of the ground were created in 1898 when earth was carted from the banks of the River Torrens. In 1900, a picket fence surrounded a cycle track which ran around the ground, and replaced the iron posts and chains which had been positioned twenty-five years before. The fence was moved to the oval's edge in 1911, the same year the famous scoreboard designed by the architect Kenneth Milne was used for the first time.

On the western side of the ground an enlarged public grandstand was named after the most influential figure in colonial South Australian sport, Sir Edwin Smith. This was completed in 1922 and was followed by the southern public stand honouring the energetic secretary of the SACA, John Creswell (1923). The Mostyn Evan Stand also erected in the 1920s extended the undercover seating for members and replaced the small smokers and ladies stands.

A number of other sports used the ground from the early days: most notably Australian football from 1876. In all, 16 sports have been played on the oval including archery, athletics, baseball, cycling, gridiron football, highland games, hockey, lacrosse, lawn tennis, rugby league, rugby union, quoits and soccer.

The first Test match was played in December 1884 and the record crowd for cricket is 50,962 during the Saturday of the Bodyline Test in January 1933. The highest attendance for any sport, however, belongs to football with 62,543 people attending the 1965 grand final between Port Adelaide and Sturt. The last football grand final at the Adelaide Oval was in 1973 and the largest crowd since then was the rock concert by Elton John and Billy Joel in 1998 which drew 37,000 patrons.

Unlike the other major sports grounds in Australia, Adelaide Oval has preserved its aesthetic charm. The western public and members grandstands, and the scoreboard are all items listed on the City of Adelaide Heritage Register, and the Sir Donald Bradman Stand which replaced the John Creswell Stand in 1990 complements the other stands magnificently.