10 Facts About Simpson Desert

Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia.

Simpson Desert is underlain by the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest inland drainage areas in the world.

Simpson Desert is an erg that contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes.

Wangkangurru people lived in the Simpson Desert using hand-dug wells called mikiri from long before European colonisation until the Federation Drought.

The name Simpson Desert was coined by Cecil Madigan, after Alfred Allen Simpson, an Australian industrialist, philanthropist, and geographer, and president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia.

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Simpson Desert carried all his equipment in a two-wheeled cart, and crossed from East Bore on the western edge of the desert to Birdsville in the east.

Towns providing access to the South Australian edge of the Simpson Desert include Innamincka to the south and Oodnadatta to the southwest; and from the eastern side include Birdsville, Bedourie, Thargomindah, and Windorah.

Simpson Desert is popular with tourists, particularly in winter, and popular landmarks include the ruins and mound springs at Dalhousie Springs, Purnie Bore wetlands, Approdinna Attora Knoll and Poeppel Corner .

Simpson Desert is a large part of the World Wildlife Fund ecoregion of the same name, which consists of the Channel Country and the Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields bioregions of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia .

Flora of the Simpson Desert ecoregion is limited to drought-resistant shrubs and grasses, especially Zygochloa paradoxa grass that holds the dunes together and the spinifex and other tough grasses of side slopes and sandy desert floor between the dunes.