Australia's Outback and Coastal Regions

Australia, at roughly 7.69 million square kilometers, is the sixth-largest country on Earth and, by most measures, the driest inhabited continent: about 70 percent of its landmass is classified as arid or semi-arid, a zone popularly known as the Outback. This interior is not a single uniform desert but a mosaic of distinct arid systems, including the Great Victoria Desert, which at roughly 348,750 square kilometers is Australia's largest, along with the Simpson Desert, the Great Sandy Desert, the Tanami Desert, and the Gibson Desert. Much of this country drains, when it drains at all, toward Lake Eyre (known to the Arabana people as Kati Thanda), Australia's largest lake and, at about 15 meters below sea level, its lowest point; the lake is normally a vast dry salt pan and fills with water only rarely, most notably in 1974, 2000, 2019, and 2024, after major inland flooding.