What is the large, desert area of Australia called?

The large, remote interior of Australia is called the Outback.

The Outback is a vast, sparsely populated region rather than one single desert. It includes Australia’s arid Red Centre, but it also stretches across areas with tropical, monsoonal, semi-arid, and temperate climates. Its defining features are remoteness, low population density, largely intact landscapes, and land uses such as cattle grazing and mining.

Aboriginal Australians have lived throughout the Outback for at least 50,000 years and maintain deep cultural and physical connections to traditional Country. European exploration of the interior expanded during the nineteenth century, while later roads, railways, mining operations, and cattle stations shaped the region’s modern history.

People sometimes use “Outback” and “Australian desert” as if they mean exactly the same thing, but they do not. Australia has several named deserts, including the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Gibson, and Simpson deserts. The Outback is the broader cultural and geographic term that encompasses many deserts along with grasslands, woodlands, ranges, and remote settlements.