Australian Outback Facts: Here's Why You Should Explore This Place!

The Australian Outback is a collection of diverse landscapes, offering a unique and fantastic travel experience.

The home of the famous red kangaroo and emu, the Outback is one of the most iconic regions in Australia.

With giant red kangaroos and emus, dramatic rock formations, and one of the most untouched wild places on earth – it's no wonder why so many people have taken to exploring this vast country. It's all about exploration!

Some major ecosystems like Ten Central Deserts, Nullarbor Plain, Western Woodlands, Kimberely, and Pilbara regions are in Western Australia, within the country's northern territory. All of these are a part of the Outback.

While Sydney and Queensland are some of the most visited places of tourism in Australia, you can cover vast areas if you consider the outback range of the continent.

What is the Australian Outback?

The Australian Outback is a collection of an area on the southeast coast of Australia that features desert plains, woodlands, and grasslands. The Carpentaria Gulf bounds it to the west, Arnhem Land to the north, and Fraser Island to the east and south.

The Outback covers an area of 3,111,000 sq mi (8057453 sq km). The area is so vast that it takes up half of Australia's landmass, 49% of its total area.

The Outback features a mix of environments that include desert plains and woodlands, tall mountain ranges, and large expanses of grassland.

The significant populations of the Outback are found on the southern and eastern edges of this area. As for the climate, it varies significantly with low rainfall and hot summers and cold winters.

The Outback is home to unique wildlife, including larger animals such as kangaroos, emus, dingoes, echidnas, and smaller mammals.

It also features many birds and reptiles, including pythons, mulga snakes, and brown tree snakes. Some insects that live there include butterflies like the painted lady butterfly, bush tucker, walnuts, bracken grubs, and lily bulbs. The Outback also features various edible native plants such as gooseberries.

The Outback features many small freshwater lakes that are a vital water source for wildlife. There are over 3,000 salt lakes scattered across this vast area.

The most famous lake in the region is Lake Eyre, which gets its name because it is so dry that algae form on its surface instead of water.

The Outback covers a significant part of Australia's cattle industry, making up 49% by size. Its harsh environment makes it essential for animal farmers and ranchers to use fencing to protect their herds if they get hurt or lost by wild animals like dingoes and feral camels.

Resources Found In The Australian Outback

The Outback is covered in a vast diversity of landscapes and deserts like the Great Sandy Desert and the Great Victoria Desert. It features desert plains, woodlands, savannahs, and grasslands. The areas that cover deserts of dunes, buttes, creeks, and dry river beds are called the Great Sandy Desert.

The Outback features an area of plains that have vegetation such as woodlands and savannahs overlooking them. Rivers and lakes constantly water these because they have mountains surrounding them on three sides – the Basin and Range Geologic Belt create their terrain.

The Outback features elevations ranging from a few hundred feet to around 8 mi (12.8 km) up in the mountains, although the most range between 2–6 mi (3.2-9.6 km) high above sea level. It is because the land rises in altitude as it ages.

Some of the mountain ranges contain iron, copper, and limestone deposits. The longest rock range in the Outback is around 4,400 mi (7081 km) long, and it has a width of over 350 mi (563.27 km).

The Environment Of The Australian Outback

The Australian Outback features an environment that is severely dry with temperatures that can reach above 100 F (37.7 C) in the summer and below freezing in the winter.

This is why ranchers who use fencing to protect their herds of cattle from getting lost or wounded by wild animals such as dingoes and feral camels have to be heavily controlled.

The Outback features a diverse environment filled with deserts, woodlands, and grasslands.

The Australian Outback contains different types of deserts. It also includes dunes, dry river beds, and dry creek beds.

The Outback's desserts have highly hostile environments, with some recording temperatures reaching above 120 F (48.88 C) in the summer and below -10 F (-23.3 C) in the winter. Other areas can reach up to 50 F (10 C) in temperature annually.

Population Of The Australian Outback

There are over 500,000 people that live in the Outback. Most of them reside in the places such as Alice Springs, Bourke, Katherine, and Lachlan Valley.

The Outback has a reasonably large population, but it is still less than half of Australia's total population, making it one of Australia's most sparsely populated regions.

The Australian Outback is home to some of its most well-known attractions, including Uluru and Kata Tjuta, which are massive sandstone columns located in the central part of the desert.

Did You Know?

The first interesting fact of the Outback is the enormous oceanic trench on earth found here. The experts say that it may be related to the warm temperatures of this part of Australia's geography.

It also has over half a million waterholes used by kangaroos, emus, and other animals across its landscape.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service was formally established in Outback Australia in 1928, with the first air-mail service in 1929. It's another example that this landscape is so diverse and full of surprises. So it would help if you visited Australia at least once in your life.

The temperatures here can become extreme in summer and winter, reaching above 100 F (37.77 C) or below 10 F (-12.2 C). However, its geographic location and a collection of water sources and lush grasslands are highly sought-after for cattle ranches. The region also lies at significant risk from bushfires.

To get a sense of how vast this combination of desert plains and savannah woodlands is, the Australian Outback stretches 3000 mi (4828 km) to the west coast, 2000 mi (3218.6 km) to the east coast, and 600 mi (965.6 km) north-south – all while being half as wide as the rest of Australia.

While most of the ecosystems are in the northern territory of Western Australia, South Australia is home to agriculture. The vast lands here are marginally fertile and usually used for cattle grazing. Apart from that, we have Coober Pedy in South Australia, literally the world's Opal Capital.

Tourism in this continent has taken a hit after the bush fire and pandemic situation, but the beautiful places covered in the Australia Outback area are reminders of nature's consistency.

Now that you have noted down the significant locations make sure to visit the great pyramid, eyre highway, Stuart highway, Tanami Desert, Simpson Desert, Red Centre, Straight Railway Track, Great Victoria Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Ayers Rock, Alice Springs, and several arid areas from not only central Australia but inland Australia, north, Red Center and south of the Outback.