After European settlement in the 19th century, there was a cattle station on the land, which was named Everard Park.

Due to its links with the Northern Territory and proximity to the border, the APY Lands do not observe daylight savings unlike the rest of South Australia.

[2] Based upon the climate records of the nearest weather station at Marla Police Station, Mimili experiences summer maximum temperatures of an average of 37.1 °C in January and a winter maximum average temperature of 19.7 °C in June.

Attendance at the school benefited from the construction of a swimming pool in a joint Commonwealth / State Government initiative that was operational in September 2006 and officially opened the following month on 28 October 2006 by Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Families, Communities and Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough.

[5][6] Mimili was the first community in the APY Lands to create a bush foods garden.

[8] Mimili has a permanent South Australian police station, open seven days a week.

[11] Its name derives from the Maku (witchetty grub) Tjukurpa, which is found in the paintings of senior artists like Betty Kuntiwa Pumani (winner National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award-winner 2015 & 2016 and winner of the 2017 Wynne Prize), Ngupulya Pumani (finalist NATSIAA 2015, finalist Wynne Prize 2017), Tuppy Goodwin (finalist NATSIAA 2018) and Puna Yanima.