More than 60% of the desert lies in the Indian state of Rajasthan; the portion in India also extends into Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana.

The most recent paleontological discovery in 2023 from the Thar Desert in India, dating back to 167 million years ago, pertains to a herbivorous dinosaur group known as dicraeosaurids.

This lack of monsoon caused extensive rainfall over the Sahara, expansion of the Thar Desert, more dust deposited into the Arabian Sea, a lowering of the biotic life zones on the Indian subcontinent, and animals responded to this shift in climate with the Javan rusa deer migrating into India.

[15][web 1] 4,000 years ago when monsoons diminished even further, the dried-up Harkra become an intermittent river, and the urban Harappan civilisation declined, becoming localized in smaller agricultural communities.

The desert stretches to Punjab and Haryana in the north, to the Great Rann of Kutch along the coast, and to the alluvial plains of the Indus River in the west and northwest.

Much of the desert area is covered by huge, shifting sand dunes that receive sediments from the alluvial plains and the coast.

[3] Saltwater lakes within the Thar Desert include the Sambhar, Kuchaman, Didwana, Pachpadra, and Phalodi in Rajasthan and Kharaghoda in Gujarat.

[17] Lithic tools belonging to the prehistoric Aterian culture of the Maghreb have been discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in the Thar Desert.

To counteract this problem, sand dunes are stabilised by first erecting micro windbreak barriers with scrub material and then by afforestation of the treated dunes—planting the seedlings of shrubs (such as phog, senna, and castor oil plant) and trees (such as gum acacia, Prosopis juliflora, and lebbek tree).

There are several protected areas in the Thar Desert: Some wildlife species that are fast vanishing in other parts of India are found in the desert in large numbers, including the blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), chinkara (Gazella bennettii), and Indian wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) in the Rann of Kutch.

The natural vegetation of this dry area is classified as northwestern thorn scrub forest (i.e. small, loosely-scattered patches of greenery).

In the true desert areas, the only sources of water for animals or humans are small, scattered ponds - some that are natural (tobas) and some that are human-made (johads).

The persistence of water scarcity heavily influences life in all areas of the Thar, prompting many inhabitants to adopt a nomadic lifestyle.

The Thar is one of the most heavily populated desert areas in the world with the main occupations of its inhabitants being agriculture and animal husbandry.

[34] Agricultural production is mainly from kharif crops, which are grown in the summer season and seeded in June and July.

These are then harvested in September and October and include bajra, pulses such as guar, jowar (Sorghum vulgare), maize (zea mays), sesame and groundnuts.

This ecotourism industry ranges from cheaper backpacker treks to plush Arabian-Nights-style campsites replete with banquets and cultural performances.

To make matters worse, there was a severe drought and a resulting famine from 1895 to 1900, during the reign of Maharawal Salivahan Singh, which caused the widespread loss of the livestock upon which the increasingly agriculturally based kingdom had come to rely.