Simpson Desert

Desert in SE Northern Territory and SW Queensland, C Australia; mostly scrubland and sand dunes; area c.77 000 km²/30 000 sq mi; first crossed in 1939 by Cecil Madigan; Queensland region contains a national park (c.5550 km²/2150 sq mi).

The Simpson Desert is a desert covering approximately 170,000 square kilometres in central Australia, occupying an area bounded on the west by the Finke River and the Mabel Range, the Adam Range to the north, the Georgina River and the Diamantina River to the east, and Lake Eyre to the south.

Beneath the Simpson Desert lies the Great Artesian Basin, waters from which rise to the surface both at several natural springs (especially at Dalhousie Springs) and artificial bores (some drilled for stock routes, others during failed oil exploration.) The flow of water to the springs has been substantially reduced in recent years by over-exploitation and may soon cease.

The Simpson Desert is an erg and contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes, running north-south.

The desert was named by Cecil Madigan in 1939 after Allen Simpson, an Australian philanthropist, geographer, and president of the Royal Geographical Society of S.A. In 1845, explorer Charles Sturt was the first European to visit the region, but it was not until 1936 that Ted Colson became the first white man to cross the entire desert.

There are no roads through the desert.

A section of the Commonwealth Railways Trans-Australian line passes through the western side of the Simpson Desert.