What is the Great Sandy Desert?

The Great Sandy Desert is a large arid region in northern Western Australia, covering about 267,250 square kilometres. It is the second-largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert, stretching from the Indian Ocean coast at Eighty Mile Beach inland to the Northern Territory border, and from the Pilbara region in the south to the Kimberley in the north.

The desert is dominated by long red sand dunes oriented broadly east-west, interspersed with rocky outcrops, salt lakes, and seasonal river channels. Lake Disappointment, a large salt lake in the south, is one of the few major geographic features and was named in 1897 by surveyor Frank Hann who had expected to find fresh water. Rainfall averages 200 to 300 millimetres a year, concentrated in the summer monsoon season.

The desert is the traditional country of several Aboriginal nations including the Martu, Mangala, Walmajarri, and Kartujarra peoples, with continuous occupation extending back at least 50,000 years. The Martu are the Traditional Owners of much of the central desert and run the Karlamilyi (Rudall River) National Park and several Indigenous Protected Areas. The Canning Stock Route, 1,850 kilometres long, was built between 1906 and 1910 to drove cattle from the Kimberley to the Wiluna railhead, and runs through the heart of the desert.

Today the desert is sparsely populated, with the Aboriginal community of Punmu the largest settlement and rangers maintaining country through fire management programs. The Great Sandy is also part of the Madigan Line ecology, supporting bilbies, marsupial moles, and several endangered desert species. The Telfer gold and copper mine in the eastern desert is one of the largest in Australia.