[5] Cunnamulla is the administrative centre for the Paroo Shire, which also includes the townships of Wyandra, Yowah and Eulo, and covers an area of 47,617 square kilometres (18,385 sq mi).

Major industries of the area are cattle, sheep and goat farming, along with tourism and opal mining.

The Gunya language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Paroo Shire Council, taking in Cunnamulla and extending north towards Augathella, east towards Bollon and west towards Thargomindah.

[7] Kennedy's group noted fields of native grasses that appeared to be being cultivated like a wheat crop, but they only had limited interaction with the people who resided there.

[8] Pastoralists arrived to take land from 1861 when squatter Alexander Keith Collins led an exploratory group through the region that had several skirmishes with the local Aboriginal people.

Therefore, on 3 December 1895, the Queensland Parliament approved the construction of the 121-mile (195 km) extension of the Western railway line from Charleville to Cunnamulla.

[26][27] The foundation stone for an Anglican church was laid in January 1896 by Christopher Francis, the police magistrate.

The bishop was injured on his way to Cunnamulla, as he shot at a turkey from his buggy, frightening the horses, resulting in a crash with a tree stump, but was still able to perform the ceremony.

[15][31] In 1970, Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Anne toured Australia including Queensland.

The Queensland tour began on Sunday 12 April when the royal yacht HMY Britannia entered Moreton Bay at Caloundra, sailing into Newstead Wharf.

Princess Anne accepted an invitation to spend three days on a working sheep station in south-west Queensland.

She flew to Cunnamulla on 14 April, travelling 47 miles (76 km) by road to ‘Talbarea Station’ unaccompanied.

She travelled around the district in a maroon Rolls-Royce which was unloaded from the back of a Royal Australian Air Force transport aircraft.

Princess Anne was given a demonstration of sheep shearing and wool classing on the working property and was accompanied on a horse ride during her stay.

[32] In 1999, the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development reported that Cunnamulla's indigenous community suffered from a high level of domestic violence stemming from an over reliance by the police and the courts on punishment and detention to deal with Indigenous offenders.

In 2022, they merged with Charleville Comets to form the Western Ringers, who play in the Roma District Rugby League.

Cunnamulla was the subject of a 2000 documentary film of the same name by Dennis O'Rourke, in which he followed several members of the community as they went about their daily lives.

[50] Cunnamulla is the main setting for Henry Lawson's short story "The Hypnotised Township" from his anthology The Rising of the Court, and Other Sketches in Prose and Verse.