The Tonopah Desert is adjacent northwest of the small Palo Verde Hills on Centennial Wash.

The Tonopah Desert is mostly east-west trending, small, approximately 30 mi long,[1] and lies at the plains of low elevation mountains north; the Belmont Mountains are northeast with the Hummingbird Springs Wilderness in its north-northwest.

The west and southwest of the Tonopah Desert is connected to the southeast section of the large Harquahala Plain, northwest-southeast trending, the same lineage as the Centennial and Bouse Washes which drain the named plains, mountains, and the desert, (about twenty landforms in the region).

South of the Interstate, and only 5 mi due-southwest of Tonopah is Wintersburg, Arizona, the site of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.

From Interstate 10, unimproved roads go north into the desert, namely 355th Ave (west);[4] the Sun Valley Parkway is just east going to areas of northwest Phoenix–Glendale.