Australian Outback
The Australian Outback refers to the vast, remote inland areas of Australia, primarily encompassing the central and northern regions characterized by arid and desert-like conditions. Covering approximately 5.6 million square kilometers, the Outback includes diverse landscapes such as red rock deserts, grassland plains, and woodlands, housing a unique array of plants and animals, many of which are endemic to this region. The Outback has significant cultural importance, particularly for Aboriginal Australians, who have lived in this area for tens of thousands of years, deeply intertwining their mythology and art with the landscape.
Historically, European exploration of the Outback began in the early 19th century, leading to increased settlement and economic activities such as cattle farming and mining, which remain vital to the region's economy today. Major tourist attractions, including Mount Augustus and Katherine Gorge, draw visitors interested in experiencing the rugged beauty of the Outback, contributing significantly to its economic landscape. Despite its harsh conditions, the Outback is home to a small but resilient population, consisting of both Aboriginal peoples and settlers, with many living in remote villages connected by limited infrastructure. The area’s low population density is contrasted by its rich cultural heritage and ecological significance, underscoring the importance of preservation efforts in collaboration with Indigenous communities.
Australian Outback
The Outback is the name given to the large, typically remote inland areas of Australia. Normally the name is applied to regions in the centre and northern plains of the Great Western Plateau, as well as regions in the Northern Territory, where conditions are regularly dry and desert-like. Alongside the red rock deserts, the Outback is also home to grassland plains and woodlands, and is full of plants and animals, including hundreds of thousands of species not found anywhere else on earth. The Outback makes up about 5.6 million square kilometres, or over two-thirds of the continent. It stretches from the southernmost tip of the mainland and continues to Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory.
The term "Outback" has been the popular moniker for these arid regions since the nineteenth century. Other popular terms for the Outback include "the bush", "back o'Bourke", "the never-never", and "back country". The Outback has been depicted often in popular culture as a rugged and masculine region. Separating the Outback from the fertile eastern portion of the country is the Great Dividing Range, also known as Australia's Alps. Many deserts make up the Outback. The four largest are the Great Victoria Desert, Great Sandy Desert, the Tanami Desert, and the Simpson Desert. While the population of the entire Outback was only about 800,000 in 2014, it is home to the majority of the Aboriginal population.
Historical Perspective
Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Aboriginal Australians resided in the Outback for tens of thousands of years. Much of their culture, including art and mythology, is deeply rooted in the arid landscape of the Outback. In Aboriginal mythology, the Outback was created by spirits that moved across the land and called forth animals, plants, and rocks along the way.
Due to its arid nature and lack of vegetation and water, European explorers tended to avoid the Outback and stick with the lush coastal regions of Australia. The first European exploration of the Outback is credited to Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, who, in 1813, explored a trail through the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales, making it possible for other settlers to make use of the region in Australia's inland. Settlement in the Outback greatly increased after the expeditions of 1858, 1860 and 1861–62, led by Scottish explorer John McDouall Stuart. These expeditions led to the 1872 establishment of the Overland Telegraph, which allowed for fast communications on the continent and with the rest of the world, and construction of several roads that connected villages in the Outback. Further exploration continued throughout the 1950s, when much building was done to help support nuclear tests by the British government in South Australia and Western Australia.
Geography and Climate
The majority of land considered part of the Outback is arid desert. Because of this, the Outback suffers from a high extinction rate and an ongoing decline in biodiversity. In the two hundred years since European settlers arrived in the area, the Outback has lost more than twenty of its endemic mammal species. A great deal of the land is managed and protected by Aboriginal Australians. These peoples work with charitable agencies and the Government to preserve tens of millions of hectares of important wildlife habitat.
Seventy per cent of Australia is made up of arid regions that receive less than five hundred millimetres of rainfall each year. The daytime temperatures in both the central and northern zones are typically hot. In the Outback region of northern Australia, much of the year is wet and humid, except for the dry months of April through October.
Economy
Regions within the Northern Territory, including Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Arnhem Land, are popular tourist attractions and important for the economy of the Outback. These areas are often marketed as attractions that give visitors a look at a more rugged side of the country, outside of Australia's urban centres. Some of the most visited tourist attractions in the Outback include Mount Augustus (Burringurrah), Devils Marbles and Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park. Outback tourism brings in tens of billions of dollars every year, with domestic tourism responsible for 73 per cent of the total direct tourism gross domestic product (GDP).
The key industries in the Outback regions are cattle and sheep farming and the mining of iron, coal, and opals, among other minerals. Significant mining fields in the Outback can be found at Broken Hill, New South Wales, and Coober Pedy, South Australia. Mining made up about 14 per cent of GDP, as of 2024 Roughly 87 per cent of Western Australia is used as rangeland for farming. Of that land, about 42 per cent is used for commercial livestock grazing.
Demographics
After Antarctica, Australia has the lowest population density of any continent. The sparsely populated Outback plays a major role in this statistic, as an estiamted 650,000 to 800,000 people resided within this very large region of 5.6 million square kilometres in 2023. This amounts to a population density of roughly 0.14 per square kilometre, as compared to 10.4 per square kilometre in the rest of the nation. A relatively high percentage of the Outback population is Aboriginal (about a quarter). They are confined to small villages separated by deserts and connected by highways and dirt roads. About half of the Outback population lived in service and mining regions, where work was steady.
Bibliography
Davidson, Robyn. Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback. Bloomsbury, 2012.
MacMillen, Richard E., and Barbara J. MacMillen, editors. Meanderings in the Bush: Natural History Explorations in Outback Australia. 2nd ed. CSIRO Pub., 2009.
Van Driesum, Rob. Outback Australia. Lonely Planet, 2002.
"Guide to the Outback." Australia.com, 2024, www.australia.com/en-us/things-to-do/nature-and-national-parks/guide-to-the-australian-outback.html. Accessed 17 June 2024.
Woinarski, John, et al. The Modern Outback: Nature, People and the Future of Remote Australia. The Pew Charitable Trusts, Oct. 2014, www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2014/10/themodernoutbackforweb.pdf. Accessed 17 June 2024.