The Gulf Country is a block of dry savanna between the wetter areas of Arnhem Land and the Top End of the Northern territory to the west and the Cape York Peninsula of Far North Queensland to the east, while to the south and east lie upland plains of Mitchell grasses and the Einasleigh Uplands.

[1] The landscape is generally flat and low-lying tropical savannah cut through with rivers that carry the monsoon rains to the gulf and feed coastal mudflats and patches of rainforest.

The main settlements in the region include the city of Mount Isa and the towns of Doomadgee, Cloncurry, Camooweal, Kowanyama, Karumba, Normanton and Burketown.

Jirandali (also known as Yirandali, Warungu, and Yirandhali) is an Australian Aboriginal language of the Gulf Country, particularly the Hughenden area.

The language region includes the local government area of the Shire of Flinders, including Dutton River, Flinders River, Mount Sturgeon, Caledonia, Richmond, Corfield, Winton, Torrens, Tower Hill, Landsborough Creek, Lammermoor Station, Hughenden, and Tangorin.

[4] Waanyi (also known as Wanyi, Wanyee, Wanee, Waangyee, Wonyee, Garawa, and Wanji) is an Australian Aboriginal language of the Gulf Country.

[7] The first known European explorer to visit the region was the Dutch Willem Janszoon (whose name is also written as Jansz) in his 1605–6 voyage.

His fellow countryman Jan Carstenszoon (or Carstensz) visited in 1623 and named the gulf in honour of Pieter de Carpentier, at that time the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.

John McKinlay, Frederick Walker and William Landsborough lead separate search parties into the Gulf looking for Burke and Wills in 1861 and 1862.

His research showed that senior colonial politicians, including former South Australian colonial premiers Sir John Colton and Sir John Downer, along with South Australian police, "masterminded, condoned or concealed... atrocities" in the Gulf Country, which led to the deaths of at least 600 Aboriginal people.

Due to the lead production in the town, Mount Isa has one of the most intensive air quality monitoring systems in Australia.

On the savanna dicanthium bluegrass grows tall after the monsoon rains as the Gulf Country is one of the largest areas of native grassland in Australia.

One endemic grassland bird, the Carpentarian grasswren, is suffering as changing fire regimes (the way grasses are systematically burnt and allowed to renew) are reducing their habitat.