It is Australia's fourth-largest desert and one of the world's great parallel-dune landscapes. In the Munga-Thirri–Simpson Desert protected areas, dunes can extend for more than 150 kilometers, with some stretching as far as 200 kilometers.

Munga-Thirri means Big Sandhill Country. The desert is the traditional Country of the Wangkangurru Yarluyandi people, whose cultural knowledge, songlines, and navigation systems are inseparable from the landforms themselves.