What is the size of the Outback Desert?

Answer 1

There is no single desert known as the "outback desert" in Australia. There are numerous deserts. The three largest deserts in Australia are:

Great Victoria Desert (Western Australia): 424,400 km2 (163,900 square miles)

Great Sandy Desert (Western Australia): 284,993 km2 (110,036 square miles)

Tanami Desert (Western Australia and Northern Territory): 184,500 km2 (71,235 square miles)

Each of these deserts is either in or primarily in Western Australia, in the western third of the continent.

The Nullarbor Plain is an arid, limestone region extending for some 270,000 square km above the Great Australian Bight. Nothing is cultivated there, and in many respects its aridness places it within the category of desert, but there is little (if any) sand there.

Other deserts include -

Simpson Desert (Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia): 176,500 km2 (68,145 square miles)

Gibson Desert (Western Australia): 156,000 km2 (60,230 square miles)

Little Sandy Desert (Western Australia): 111,500 km2 (43,050 square miles)

Strzelecki Desert (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia): 80,250 km2 (30,985 square miles)

Sturt Stony Desert (South Australia): 29,750 km2 (11,485 square miles)

Tirari Desert (South Australia): 15,250 km2 (5,890 square miles)

Pedirka Desert (South Australia): 1,250 km2 (480 square miles)

Answer 2

There are no defining boundaries for the size of the outback in Australia. The term "outback" refers to the vast inland area of Australia. It is a generic term applied (very loosely) to anywhere in Australia which is more than 400 kms from the coast, except for in the west and through parts of South Australia where it applies to the semi-arid country extending right to the coast.

Answer 3

The outback is not a desert.

The "outback" is a general term encompassing the remote, inland area of Australia. Some of the outback is desert, some is semi-arid mulga scrub, some is grassland, and some is where hundreds of thousands of head of sheep and cattle are run on huge stations.

The largest desert in Australia is the Great Victoria Desert, which covers around 348 750 sq km, and makes up 4.5% of Australia's total land area.