On a global scale, the Lake Eyre Basin: is one of the largest internally draining systems; has the fifth largest terminal lake; is an arid and semi-arid part of the driest inhabited continent; and is drained by the most variable, major river systems, the Georgina, Diamantina and Cooper (see the World Lakes Datebase and Floods of Lake Eyre for a range of very interesting information).
Other rivers draining the more than a million square kilometres of the Basin either contribute to Lake Eyre only rarely, or in the case of some Central Australian streams, become lost in the sands of the Simpson Desert and never reach the lake.
The Basin is made up of large parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland, along with a small slice of western New South Wales. The major cross-border water flows are from Queensland into South Australia, however substantial flows do occur out of the Northern Territory into both Queensland and South Australia.
