Utah

Missing image UT-flag-med.PNG 152px (In Detail) (Full size)
State nickname: Beehive State
Other U.S. States
Capital	Salt Lake City
Largest City	Salt Lake City
Governor	Olene Walker
Area  - Total  - Land  - Water  - % water	Ranked 13th 220,080 km² 212,988 km² 7,092 km² 3.2%
Population  - Total (2000)  - Density	Ranked 34th 2,233,169 10/km²
Admittance into Union  - Order  - Date	45th January 4, 1896
Time zone	Mountain: UTC-7/-6
Latitude Longitude	37° to 42°N 109°W to 114°W
Width Length Elevation   - Highest   - Mean   - Lowest	435 km 565 km   4,123 meters 1,920 meters 610 meters
ISO 3166-2:	US-UT

Utah is a western state of the United States, in the Rocky Mountains region. The name Utah is from the Southern Ute language. The Paiute and Goshute nations also inhabit portions of the state. Residents are called Utahns.

History

Native Americans have lived Utah for several thousand years. They left petroglyphs and pictographs which exist throughout the state.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cibola.

A group led by two priests--sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition--left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition travelled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents.

Fur trappers--including Jim Bridger--explored some regions of Utah in the early 1800's. The city of Provo, Utah was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825.

Mormon settlers first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, Utah was still Mexican territory. As a consequence of the Mexican-American War, the land became the territory of the United States upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The Treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10.

Utah's bid for statehood was accepted January 4, 1896, after over forty years of initial request and struggles. The delay was largely due to disputes between the Mormon inhabitants--who had settled in the area in 1847 and were pushing for the establishment of the state of Deseret. The western half of Deseret was admitted to the Union after the discovery of silver, but was split off from Utah as Nevada in 1864. The US Government which was reluctant to admit a state the size of the proposed Deseret into the union, opposed the polygamous practices of the Mormons taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and observed that the region lacked the necessary 60,000 voters required for statehood. One of the conditions to granting Utah's statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the Utah Constitution. This was a condition required of other western states that were also admitted later into the Union.

Law and government

See List of Utah Governors

The capital and largest city is Salt Lake City.

Geography

See List of Utah counties

Utah is one of the Four Corners states and is bordered by Idaho and Wyoming in the north, by Colorado in the east, by Arizona in the south, and by Nevada in the west.

One of Utah's defining characteristics is the variety of its terrain. The Wasatch Mountains run a center spine of the state, and the Uinta Mountain range in the north-east (the only east-west running mountain range in North America) includes the highest point in the state, Kings Peak at 13,528 feet. The Great Salt Lake lies to the immediate west of the Wasatch Mountains, beyond which the Bonneville Salt Flats stretch to Nevada. All land west of the Wasatch Mountains is within the Great Basin, while everything to the East drains into the Colorado River system.

Much of the scenic southern landscape is sandstone, more specifically Kayenta sandstone and Navajo sandstone, cut and shaped by the Colorado River or its tributaries.

Western Utah is mostly arid desert with a basin and range geology. Northeastern Utah (from the Wasatch Mountains eastward and from the Uintah Plateau northward) is largely mountainous with many wooded and alpine regions.

• Area: 219,900 square kilometers
• Physical features: Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Lake Powell, Flaming Gorge, Jordan River, Colorado River, Green River, Lake Bonneville, Wasatch Mountains, Uinta Mountains, Great Basin, National Parks, Four Corners and the Colorado Plateau.
• Like most of the west and southwest states, the federal government owns much of the land in Utah. In Utah over seventy percent of the land is either BLM land or national forest, park, monument, recreation or wilderness area. Under Article IV, § 3, cl. 2 of the United States Constitution, the federal government has plenary and supreme--although concurrent--civil and criminal jurisdiction over these federal lands within the borders of each state.

Parks and monuments

The desert plateaus of Southern Utah contain five national parks:

• Bryce Canyon
• Zion National Park
• Canyonlands
• Arches
• Capitol Reef

National Monuments in Utah include:

• Dinosaur National Monument
• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
• Rainbow Bridge National Monument

In addition, Utah contains several notable state parks and monuments:

• Dead Horse Point State Park
• Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument
• This Is The Place State Park

Transportation

Utah's major highways are Interstate 15, which runs the length of Utah; Interstate 70, which enters the state from Colorado and terminates at I-15 in central Utah; Interstate 80, which crosses from West Wendover, Nevada on the west through Salt Lake City and eastward through Evanston, Wyoming; and Interstate 84, which runs southeast to northwest from I-80 to the Idaho border.

Demographics

The population of Utah as of 2000 is 2,233,169. Much of the population lives in cities and towns along the Wasatch Front, a metropolitan region that runs north-south with the Wasatch Mountains rising on the eastern side. Most of the rest of the state is rural or wilderness.

Important cities and towns

Aside from the capital Salt Lake City, other major cities outside of the Salt Lake City area are Orem-Provo, Ogden, Logan and St. George.

Colleges and universities

Professional sports teams

• Utah Jazz, National Basketball Association
• Salt Lake Stingers of the Pacific Coast League
• Ogden Raptors and Provo Angels of the Pioneer League
• Utah Grizzlies of the American Hockey League

Miscellaneous information

• The continental meeting of the railroads happened at Promontory Point, Utah;
• Utah native Philo Farnsworth invented the electronic television in 1927;
• Utah native John Moses Browning designed a number of popular firearms like the M2 .50 caliber machine gun and the Colt Model 1911 .45 semi-automatic handgun
• The 2002 Winter Olympics were hosted by Salt Lake City; and
• The USS Utah was named in honor of this state.

Political divisions of the United States

States Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming Federal district District of Columbia Insular areas American Samoa | Baker Island | Guam | Howland Island | Jarvis Island | Johnston Atoll | Kingman Reef | Midway Atoll | Navassa Island | Northern Mariana Islands | Palmyra Atoll | Puerto Rico | Virgin Islands | Wake Island

External link

• Official state website (http://www.state.ut.us/)