The name Barkly Tableland properly applies only to the areas of largely treeless, cracking-clay soils supporting grasslands dominated by Mitchell Grass (Astrebla spp.).

Varying Barkly regions encompass: An area from Dunmarra south to Barrow Creek, and from the Tanami desert to the Queensland border.

[8] From the McArthur River in the north, parallel approximately 100 miles inland from the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Queensland border in the east.

[16] William Landsborough was the first non-Indigenous Australian person to explore the tableland, and named it after Sir Henry Barkly, then governor of Victoria.

[18] Rainfall in this inland area is low (350mm per year) and subject to extreme seasonal fluctuations with rains occurring from November to March during the hot (up to 40 °C) summer.

It includes the Mueller Plateau and Sandover-Pituri Platform physiographic sections between the desert uplands in the west and Mount Isa, Queensland in the east.

The grasslands support other distinctive plants alongside the grasses but there are no areas of thick woodland, only acacia trees scattered across the plain, and red river gum along watercourses.

There are also many snakes and other reptiles and amphibians adapted to the clay soils that crack in the long dry season and turn to mud after the rains.

These include burrowing frogs that emerge to breed in the mud and the long-haired rat which erupts in huge numbers after the monsoon and spreads across the grasslands.