Utah
The Beehive State, red rock and the Great Salt Lake
Utah is where three great physical regions of the West collide. The Rocky Mountains reach down from the north in the high Wasatch and Uinta ranges — the Great Basin desert spreads across the west around the shrinking Great Salt Lake — and the Colorado Plateau fills the south and east with the most spectacular red rock country on Earth. That southern third — canyons, arches, hoodoos, and mesas carved into vivid sandstone — gives Utah more national parks than any state but California and Alaska.
The Wasatch Front, where the mountains meet the desert, holds most of the population in a string of cities below the peaks, from Salt Lake City out to Provo and Ogden. Kings Peak in the Uintas, the high point at 13,534 feet (4,125 m), crowns the only major U.S. mountain range that runs east to west. To the west lies the Great Salt Lake, a remnant of a vast Ice Age lake, and the dead-flat Bonneville Salt Flats beyond it. From alpine summit to slickrock canyon, Utah is a showcase of the Intermountain West.
Economy
Utah has one of the fastest-growing and most diversified economies in the West, with a booming technology corridor along the Wasatch Front nicknamed Silicon Slopes, strong finance, mining, and aerospace and defense sectors, and a major tourism industry built on five national parks and world-class skiing. Its young population fuels rapid growth.
Politics
Utah carries 6 electoral votes and is one of the most reliably Republican states in the country, its politics strongly shaped by the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which a majority of residents belong.
Cities
Notable people
- Philo Farnsworth (1906–1971)Inventor of electronic television — born in Beaver, Utah
- Butch Cassidy (1866–1908)Old West outlaw — born in Beaver, Utah
- J. Willard Marriott (1900–1985)Founder of Marriott hotels — born in Marriott-Slaterville, Utah
- Donny Osmond (b. 1957)Singer and entertainer — born in Ogden, Utah
Related
- ArizonaThe Grand Canyon State, admitted 1912
- ColoradoThe highest state, crown of the Rocky Mountains
- IdahoThe Gem State, a rugged northern Rockies landscape
- NevadaThe Silver State, the driest in the nation
- New MexicoThe Land of Enchantment, high desert and southern Rockies
- WyomingThe least populous state, high plains and the Rockies
- State of DeseretThe vast state Latter-day Saint pioneers proposed in 1849
- Bears EarsA vast cultural landscape in southeastern Utah
- Dinosaur National MonumentA fossil wall and river canyons on the Colorado-Utah line
- Dugway Proving GroundThe remote chemical-and-biological test range
- Four CornersThe only place where four U.S. states meet
- GraftonA ghost town beneath the cliffs near Zion
- Grand Staircase-EscalanteA giant geologic staircase of cliffs in southern Utah
- Granite Mountain Records VaultThe genealogical archive inside a mountain