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Albuquerque
A high-desert city on the Rio Grande
Albuquerque spreads along the Rio Grande in the high desert of central New Mexico, in a broad valley with the Sandia Mountains rising abruptly to more than 10,000 feet on its eastern edge. Founded as a Spanish colonial town in 1706, it grew along the river — the green ribbon of cottonwoods called the bosque — that has watered settlement in this dry country for centuries. The largest city in New Mexico, it sits at roughly a mile high.
The setting is classic high Southwest: clear, dry air, brilliant light, and the dramatic granite face of the Sandias catching the sunset in the watermelon-pink color that gave the range its Spanish name. The Rio Grande threads the valley north to south, and old volcanoes stud the west mesa. Route 66 ran through downtown, and the city remains a crossroads of the desert Southwest.