Australia's six largest deserts are the Great Victoria Desert (134,650 square miles), the Great Sandy Desert (103,190), the Tanami Desert (71,200), the Simpson Desert (68,100), the Gibson Desert (60,000) and the Little Sandy Desert (43,100). These all occupy an area that stretches from the west coast to a little more than half–way across the land mass. The Tanami is the most northerly, the Great Victoria the most southerly, the Great Sandy the most westerly and the Simpson the most easterly.
The name Tanami is thought to be an anglicisation of the aboriginal name for the area, Chanamee, meaning 'never die'. This refers to certain rock holes in the desert which were said never to run dry.
The Gibson and Little Sandy deserts lie between the Great Victoria and the Great Sandy. So clockwise from the top, they are the Tanami, the Simpson, the Great Victoria, the Gibson, the Little Sandy and the Great Sandy.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a link to a map on Wikipedia. This shows that Uluru (a.k.a. Ayers Rock) is in the far south–eastern corner of the Great Sandy Desert, and the town of Alice Springs lies in a less arid area between the Great Sandy and Simpson deserts. Both (Uluru and Alice Springs) are close to the centre of the desert areas.
© Haydn Thompson 2023