What deserts are in Australia?

Australia has many deserts, with the largest being the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy Desert, the Tanami Desert, the Simpson Desert, and the Gibson Desert. Together with smaller deserts including the Little Sandy, Sturt Stony, and Strzelecki, the country has about 18 per cent of its land area classified as desert.

Australia is the second-driest continent on Earth after Antarctica. The interior receives less than 250 millimetres of rain a year, with the driest areas around Lake Eyre averaging less than 150 millimetres. The deserts are not all sand: many are stony plains (gibber country) or covered in low spinifex grass and acacia scrub. True dune deserts of high red sand ridges are most prominent in the Simpson and the Great Sandy.

The Great Victoria Desert, straddling the South Australia / Western Australia border, is the largest at 348,750 square kilometres. The Great Sandy Desert in northern Western Australia covers 267,250 square kilometres and is famous for its red dunes and as the country of the Martu people. The Simpson Desert, spanning the Northern Territory, Queensland, and South Australia, is characterised by 1,100 long parallel sand ridges, the largest dune field in the world.

Aboriginal nations have lived continuously in the deserts for tens of thousands of years. The Pintupi people, who walked out of the Gibson Desert to Kiwirrkurra in 1984, were among the last Indigenous Australians to make contact with mainstream society. Most desert country is now held under native title or as Indigenous Protected Areas. Tourism centres include the Canning Stock Route, the Birdsville Track, and four-wheel-drive crossings of the Simpson during cooler months.