The valley is a north-south trending endorheic valley within the Great Basin (geographically), Great Basin Desert (ecologically), and Basin and Range Province (tectonically) of west-central Utah. It is bounded on the west by the Confusion Range, on the east by the House Range, to the north by the Middle Range and the Great Salt Lake Desert, and the south by Wah Wah Valley and the Wah Wah Mountains. The central part of the valley has several knolls, the largest of which is Coyote Knolls. The White Valley name comes from the abundance of white rocks noted by James H. Simpson in 1859. These rocks are mostly Lake Bonneville marls in the valley floor.