The drylands, (TV: Hell Bent) also called the outlands (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, AUDIO: Fractures) or the wastelands, (AUDIO: Ascension) were a desert region on Gallifrey, located within sight of the Capitol.
Environment and Inhabitants
Time Lords from the Citadel described the outlands as cold. (TV: The Invasion of Time, etc.) In one of the Tenth Doctor’s memories, the ground was covered in snow. (TV: The Sound of Drums) Inhabitants of the drylands dressed in furs (TV: The Invasion of Time) and layered clothing. (TV: Hell Bent) The outlands were also home to pigbears, horsecats, batsnakes, (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) pig-rats, sand beetles, and dust worms. (AUDIO: Panacea)
Rassilon once described the drylands as a place "where there's nobody who matters". (TV: Hell Bent) Some Time Lords willingly abandoned the Capitol in favour of the outlands, whether for ideological reasons (TV: The Invasion of Time, AUDIO: Mindbomb) or as a form of self-imposed punishment. (AUDIO: Ascension) In particular, the group of Outsiders led by Nesbin left the Capitol in order to "get back to nature". (TV: The Invasion of Time) Some of those who attempted to survive in the outlands ultimately returned to the Capitol. (AUDIO: Mindbomb, Ascension)
Exiles from the Capitol were expelled into the outlands, (TV: The Invasion of Time, AUDIO: Panacea) if they weren't expelled from the planet entirely. (AUDIO: Pandora) Romana II once raised the possibility of fleeing into the outlands in order to dodge planetary exile. (AUDIO: Renaissance)
Locations, Events, and Individuals
The barn where the Doctor slept as a child was located in the drylands. (TV: Listen, Hell Bent, PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
At the age of eight, Gallifreyans were taken from their families to face the Untempered Schism (TV: The Sound of Drums) in the drylands. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) The march was carried out in complete silence and any child who collapsed before reaching the mountainside caldera would be carried back in disgrace. (PROSE: Tempered)
In his youth, Padrac would sneak out of the Academy to fly skimmers over the outland dunes. (AUDIO: The Eleven)
The House of Heartshaven was located in the outlands. This was the House in which Romana was raised. (AUDIO: Panacea) Romana II said that her parents used to threaten to leave her in the outlands if she misbehaved, though they never actually did so. (AUDIO: Fractures)
When Leela was banished from the Capitol by the Fourth Doctor, she and Rodan encountered a hunting party of Outsiders a short distance from the Citadel. After meeting their leader, Nesbin, Leela was able to convince the Outsiders to help defend the Citadel against the Vardan invasion. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
After the disappearance of her husband, Leela attempted to leave the Capitol to live with the Outsiders. However, President Romana wanted her to stay and sent K9 Mark I and Cardinal Braxiatel to call her back. When they both intercepted her at the edge of the outlands, an Outsider rejected Leela from the community for drawing the Capitol's attention. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)
During the Gallifreyan Civil War between President Romana and Pandora, "lines of refugees" fled from the Capitol into the outlands. (AUDIO: Panacea)
A short time before the Gallifreyan Civil War, Elbon went to live in the outlands. (AUDIO: Mindbomb) During the war, he established a for-profit medical station where he and his "three part-trained medics" tended to the wounded on both sides. The camp was infested with pig-rats, (AUDIO: Fractures) which spread a strain of the Dogma Virus. (AUDIO: Panacea) After the camp was destroyed by Pandora's forces, Elbon returned to the Capitol. (AUDIO: Warfare)
The Anomaly Vault was located underground in the outlands. During the civil war, Pandora bombed its entrance, irradiating the immediate area. (AUDIO: Fractures)
Andred was buried in the Outlands. (AUDIO: Panacea)
Commander Janartis was banished into the outlands by the Celestial Intervention Agency. He struggled to survive alone and subsisted by eating pig-rats. By the time Romana II encountered him, he was "starving, and cold, and sick, and crawling with lice" and weak enough to be killed by a stun beam on a "non-lethal" setting. (AUDIO: Panacea)
Lord President Matthias resigned without naming a successor and walked into the wastelands. Months later, he returned to the Capitol as "a broken man". Matthias’s memory of his time in the wastelands was eventually erased. (AUDIO: Ascension)
On the last day of the Last Great Time War, the War Doctor trekked across the drylands carrying the Moment so that he could activate it within the barn from his childhood. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) He noted to himself that he could only find courage to meet his end by returning to the beginning. He felt that he was completing the circle. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
After the Twelfth Doctor escaped from his confession dial, he found himself in the drylands. Here he encountered a child, whom he instructed to "go to the city" and "find somebody important." (TV: Heaven Sent) The Doctor returned to the barn from his childhood and waited for Lord President Rassilon to arrive in person. (TV: Hell Bent)
The Thirteenth Doctor landed her TARDIS on a ridge overlooking the Capitol and saw that the city was a smouldering ruin. (TV: Spyfall, Part 2) She and the Spy Master later returned to the ruins of the Capitol, which had begun to mingle with the drylands. (TV: The Timeless Children)