Outback refers to remote and 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 such as superphosphate .