Home > Outback

The outback is the remote and usually semi-arid interior of Australia. The marginally fertile parts are used for sheep or cattle farming—apart from this, tourism and scattered mining are the main economic activities in this vast and sparsely settled area. Due to the size of the outback, the total value of mining and farming is considerable.

1 Population

Over 90% of the Australian population lives in urban settlements on the coastal fringes. Despite this, the outback and the history of its exploration and settlement provides Australians with a mythical backdrop, and stories of swagmen, squatters, outlaws such as Ned Kelly (though Ned Kelly spent virtually all his time in the relatively temperate Great Dividing Range) and so on are central to the national ethos of the country. The song Waltzing Matilda, which is about swagmen and squatters, is the popular traditional Australian song.

The outback is now the only place where Australian Aborigines still live in a more or less traditional way.

2 Tourism

There are many popular tourist attractions in the outback. These include:

• Alice Springs
• Ayers Rock (Uluru)
• Coober PedyCoober Pedy population 3,500, is a small town in South Australia, 846 kilometres north of Adelaide. It is self-described as the " opal capital of the world" and is indeed the largest source of this precious stone. Located in the Australian outback, it is
• Devils Marbles
• Katherine River Gorge
• Kings Canyon (Watarrka)
• The Olgas (Kata Tjuta)The large monolithic rock formations known as Kata Tjuta ( The Olgas) are a remarkable group of 30 or so domed hills situated very close to Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Northern Territory of Australia. They are made of the same ancient conglomerate rock as t
• The MacDonald Range
• Stockman's Hall of Fame

3 Historic

The outback is also criss-crossed by numerous historic tracks, roads and highways, including:

• Birdsville TrackThe Birdsville Track is one of the more famous outback roads in Australia. The 514 km track runs from Marree, a small town in northern South Australia, north across the Strzelecki Desert and ending in Birdsville in southwestern Queensland. In former years
• Burke Developmental Road
• Canning Stock RouteThe Canning Stock Route is one of the toughest and most remote tracks in the world. It runs from Halls Creek to Wiluna, both in Western Australia. With a total distance of 1781 km it is also the longest historic stock route in the world. For the first few
• Colson Track
• Connie Sue HighwayThe Connie Sue Highway is an outback road which runs from Rawlinna, on the Indian-Pacific Railway to the Aboriginal community of Warburton, on the Great Central Road. Approximately 650 km long and running north-south, it lies entirely in the state of West
• French Line
• Gary Highway
• Gibb River Road
• Gunbarrel HighwayThe Gunbarrel Highway is an isolated desert track in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. It consists of 1400km of washaways, heavy corrugations, stone, sand and flood plains, and runs from Wiluna in the south to Yulara (via Jackie Junction and D
• K1 Line
• Kalumburu Road
• Kidson Track
• Oodnadatta TrackThe Oodnadatta Track Australia is an unsealed 406 kilometer track between Marree and Oodnadatta crossing the Tirari Desert in South Australia. It passes the southern lake of the Lake Eyre National Park. External Links by Roderick Eime.
• Peninsula Developmental Road
• Plenty Highway
• Rig Road
• Sandover Highway
• Strzelecki Track
• Tallawana Track
• Tanami Track
• WAA Line