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Outback refers to remote arid areas of Australia, although the term colloquially can refer to any lands outside of the main urban areas. The term "outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas deemed "the bush".
The outback is home to the Australian feral camel and dingoes. The Dingo fence was built to restrict dingo movements into agricultural areas towards the south east of the continent. The marginally fertile parts, mainly within the Lake Eyre Basin, are known as rangelands and have been traditionally used for sheep or cattle farming, on sheep stations and cattle stations which are leased from the Federal Government. Where as these grassy areas have fairly fertile clay soils, the remainder of the outback has exceedingly infertile paleosols which cannot support fodder nutritious enough for the economic raising of stock. Although the north of Australia has high (if extremely seasonal) and fairly reliable rainfall, giving it almost all the continent's runoff, the soils there are so poor and eroded (consisting mainly of ironstone or bauxite) as to make cropping impossible even with fertilisers.
Early European exploration of inland Australia was sporadic. More focus was on the more accessible and fertile coastal areas. The first party to successfully cross the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney was led by Gregory Blaxland in 1813, 25 years after the colony was established. People starting with John Oxley in 1819 and 1821, followed by Charles Sturt in 1829-1830 attempted to follow the westward-flowing rivers to find an "inland sea", but these were found to all flow into the Murray River and Darling River which turn south.
Over the period 1858 to 1861, John McDouall Stuart led six expeditions north from Adelaide into the outback, culminating in successfully reaching the north coast of Australia and returning, without the loss of any of the partys' members' lives. This contrasts with the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860-61 which was much better funded, but resulted in the deaths of seven of the eight members of the expedition.
The Overland Telegraph line was constructed in the 1870s along the route identified by Stuart, who had found enough water to support the needed repeater stations.
Exploration of the outback continued up to the 1950s when Len Beadell explored, surveyed and built many roads in support of the nuclear weapons tests at Emu Field and Maralinga and rocket testing on the Woomera Prohibited Area. Mineral exploration continues as new mineral deposits are identified and developed.
Less than 10 percent of the Australian population lives outside the 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, and bushrangers and so on are central to the national ethos of the country. The song Waltzing Matilda, which is about swagmen and squatters, is a popular traditional Australian song.
Due to the low economic value of much of the land in the outback, Aboriginal communities have been able to exist with less interference and disruption than in more fertile areas. A significant proportion of the country's indigenous population now lives in the Outback, in areas such as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in northern South Australia.
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