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'Deserts of Australia' cover a large portion of the land in Australia. Most of the deserts lie in the central and north-western part of the country. The largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid. The size of the deserts in Australia combined is 2.3 million square km ^[1]
(1.3 million square miles), and occupies 44% of the continent.

Contents

Australian Deserts

Size

Great Victoria Desert

Gibson Desert

Simpson Desert

Other deserts

References

Australian Deserts

Desert	State/Territory	Size(km²)	Australian Land (%)
'Great Victoria Desert'	Western Australia, South Australia	348 750	4.5%
'Great Sandy Desert'	Western Australia	267 250	3.5%
'Tanami Desert'	Western Australia, Northern Territory	184 500	2.4%
'Simpson Desert'	Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia	176 500	2.3%
'Gibson Desert'	Western Australia	156 000	2.0%
'Little Sandy Desert'	Western Australia	111 500	1.5%
'Strzelecki Desert'	South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales	80 250	1.0%
'Sturt Stony Desert'	South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales	29 750	0.3%
'Tirari Desert'	South Australia	15 250	0.2%
'Pedirka Desert'	South Australia	1 250	< 0.1%
' Western Desert' (unofficial)	Western Australia, South Australia	524 750	7.0%

_{Information taken from Australian Government Fact Site}

Size

As the area of a desert may not be easily measured exactly, different sizes have been given for Australia's deserts, as shown in this table which uses a number of sources ^{[2] [3][4]}

Desert	Smallest size given (km²)	Largest size given (km²)	Smallest size given (sq.miles)	Largest size given (sq.miles)
'Great Sandy'	338,500	415,000	150,000	160,000
'Great Victoria'	338,500	650,000 [2]	150,000	250,000
'Gibson'	155,000	310,800	60,000	120,000
'Simpson'	100,000	584,500 [3]	40,000	225,700[4]

Great Victoria Desert

Main articles: Great Victoria Desert

The Great Victoria Desert lies in Western Australia and South Australia. It is over 700 kilometres (435 miles) wide and covers and area of 424,400 square kilometers (163,900 mile²).

Gibson Desert

Main articles: Gibson Desert


The Gibson Desert lies in central Western Australia and is made up of sandhills and dry grass. The desert is about 155,000 square kilometers (60000 square miles) in size. Most of the inhabitants of the area are Indigenous Australians.

Simpson Desert

Main articles: Simpson Desert

The Simpson Desert lies mainly in the south-east part of the Northern Territory, but parts of it are also in Queensland and South Australia. It covers an area of almost 100,000 km². The Simpson Desert contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes.

Other deserts

★ Little Sandy Desert

★ Western Desert – grouping of Gibson, Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts.

★ Strzelecki Desert

★ Tanami Desert

★ Tirari Desert

References

1. [1]
2. Encarta
3. 20 biggest deserts
4. World's Largest Deserts mbgnet