Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States. It is best known for its desert landscape, which includes cactus. Arizona is also known for its exceptionally hot summers and mild winters. Less well known is the pine-covered high country in the north-central portion of the state, which contrasts with the lower deserts of the state.
Anthem Apache Junction Avondale Bellemont Benson Bisbee Buckeye Bullhead City Camp Verde Carefree Casa Grande Chandler Chinle Cottonwood Eagar Ehrenberg Eloy Flagstaff Fountain Hills Gila Bend Glendale Globe Goodyear Green Valley Heber Holbrook Kayenta Kingman Lake Havasu City Lake Montezuma Litchfield Park Marana Maricopa Mesa Munds Park Nogales Oro Valley Page Paradise Valley Parker Payson Peach Springs Peoria Phoenix Pinetop Prescott Prescott Valley Quartzsite Rio Rico Safford San Carlos Scottsdale Sedona Seligman Show Low Sierra Vista Snowflake St Michaels Surprise Taylor Tempe Tolleson Tombstone Tuba City Tubac Tucson Tusayan Wellton Wickenburg Willcox Williams Window Rock Winslow Youngtown Yuma
Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It borders New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, touches Colorado, and has a 389-mile (626 km) international border with Mexico. Aside from the Grand Canyon, many other National Forests, Parks, Monuments, and Indian reservations are located in the state. Arizona was the 48th state admitted into the U.S. (1912), and the last of the contiguous states admitted.
Arizona is the sixth largest state in area, after New Mexico and before Nevada. Aside from the Grand Canyon, a number of other National Forests, Parks, Monuments, and Indian reservations are located in the state. Of the state's 118,000 square miles, approximately 15% is privately owned. The remaining area is government forest and park land, recreation areas and Native American reservations.
Arizona is best known for its desertic landscape, which is rich in xerophyte plants such as cactus. It is also known for its climate, which presents exceptionally hot summers and mild winters. Less well known is the pine-covered high country of the Colorado Plateau in the north-central portion of the state, which contrasts with the desertic Basin and Range region in the southern portions of the state.
Like other states of the Southwest, Arizona has an abundance of topographical characteristics in addition to its desert climes. More than half of the state features mountains and plateaus and contains the largest stand of Ponderosa pine in the United States. The Mogollon Rim, a 2000-foot (600 m) escarpment, cuts across the central section of the state and marks the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, where the state experienced its worst forest fire ever in 2002. Arizona belongs firmly within the Basin and Range province of North America. The region was shaped by prehistoric volcanism, followed by a cooling-off and related subsidence. The entire region is slowly sinking.
The Grand Canyon is a colorful, steep-sided gorge, carved by the Colorado River, in northern Arizona. The canyon is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and is largely contained in the Grand Canyon National Park—one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the Grand Canyon area, visiting on numerous occasions to hunt mountain lion and enjoy the scenery.
The Canyon, created by the Colorado River cutting a channel over millions of years, is about 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6 to 29 kilometers) and attains a depth of more than 1 mile (1.6 km). Nearly 2 billion years of the Earth's history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of sediment as the Colorado Plateaus have uplifted.
Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time, except in the Navajo Nation located in the northeastern region of the state.
Highways
Main interstate routes include I-17, and I-19 running north-south, and I-40, I-8, I-10 running east-west, and a short stretch of I-15 running NE through the NW corner of the state.
Phoenix is served by a network of freeways, many of which were initiated by a 1985 sales tax measure. Before this network, I-10 and I-17 handled almost all freeway traffic in Phoenix, placing a large burden on surface arterial streets, leading to increased traffic congestion as the area grew in size.
Much of the network as of this writing is nearing completion, with some new freeway routes under consideration south and west of the city to handle projected suburban population growth.
I-17 and I-10 remain the major interstate routes with US 60 being a major east-west route connecting Mesa and Tempe with Phoenix. State Route 101, commonly called "Loop 101", is a newer road with the most recent portions opened in 2000-2001. It comprises about 2/3 of a beltway, running north-south through West Phoenix and Glendale from I-10, then east-west through far north Phoenix, then north-south through Scottsdale and Tempe to meet with US 60. It then proceeds to meet with Loop 202, another beltline still under construction, which will serve Mesa, Gilbert and other southeast Phoenix suburbs.
State Route 51 (the Piestewa Freeway) connects downtown and central Phoenix with north Phoenix and Paradise Valley, and connects with the aforementioned Loop 101 at its northern end. 2/3 of this route was opened in 1999 and the remainder in 2003. It had been known as the Squaw Peak Parkway (for a nearby mountain), but this name was considered offensive to those in the Native American community. Both the road and the mountain were re-named in the spring of 2003 for US Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a member of the Hopi tribe, the first woman to die in combat during the current Iraq War and the first Native American woman to die in combat while in the US Army.
Tucson is primarily served by I-10 and I-19. I-19 spilts off from I-10 in the southern part of Tucson, runs through southern Tucson (including an exit serving the historic Mission San Xavier) and the retirement community of Green Valley, and terminates in Nogales, in Santa Cruz County, at the international border with Mexico. Mileage signs have metric mileage figures in kilometers instead of standard miles.
State Route 210 (Barraza Aviation Parkway) is a limited-access parkway built in the early 1990's to connect downtown Tucson to the southeastern portion of the city. Few new limited-access roads are in the plans in Tucson due to strong community opposition to freeways.
As recently as 1959, many roads such as State Highway 87, the Beeline Highway between Phoenix and the small community of Payson in Gila County, were unpaved.
Yuma and Casa Grande are served by I-8; Flagstaff is served by I-17 and I-40. US Highway 95 parallels the Colorado River, from Las Vegas to the Mexican border near Yuma.
Historic U.S. Route 66, a major route for Midwestern emigrants prior to the advent of the interstate highway system, traversed the northern part of the state, passing through Flagstaff and Kingman. Route 66 in Arizona closely followed the route of what is now Interstate 40 except for an 88 mile stretch between Seligman and Kingman, now known as Arizona State Highway 66, where the route veered to the north passing through Peach Springs.
Public transportation and intercity bus -The Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas are served by public bus transit systems. Yuma and Flagstaff also have public bus systems.Greyhound Lines serves Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Yuma, and several smaller communities statewide. A light rail system is currently being built in Phoenix. When completed, it will connect Central Phoenix with the nearby cities of Mesa and Tempe. The system is projected to be operational by December of 2008.
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Airports with regularly scheduled commercial flights include: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (IATA: PHX, ICAO: KPHX) in Phoenix (the largest airport and the major international airport in the state); Tucson International Airport (IATA: TUS, ICAO: KTUS) in Tucson; Yuma International Airport (IATA: YUM, ICAO: KYUM) in Yuma; Prescott Municipal Airport (PRC) in Prescott; and Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (IATA: FLG, ICAO: KFLG) in Flagstaff.
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Meeting its original native inhabitants, Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan, explored the area in 1539. Coronado's expedition entered the area in 1540–42 during its search for Cíbola. Father Kino developed a chain of missions and taught the Indians Christianity in Pimería Alta (now southern Arizona and northern Sonora) in the 1690s and early 1700s. Spain founded fortified towns (presidios) at Tubac in 1752 and Tucson in 1775.
All of what is now Arizona became part of Mexico's northwest frontier upon the Mexican assertion of independence from Spain in 1810. The United States took possession of most of Arizona at the end of the Mexican War in 1848, after paying the Mexican government. In 1853 the land below the Gila River was acquired from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. Arizona was administered as part of the Territory of New Mexico until it was organized into a separate territory on February 24, 1863.
Other names including "Gadsonia", "Pimeria", "Montezuma", "Arizuma", and "Arizonia" had been considered for the territory, however when President Lincoln signed the final bill, it read "Arizona", and the name became permanent. Montezuma was not the Mexican Emperor, but the sacred name of a divine hero to the Pueblo people of the Gila valley, and was probably considered — and rejected — for its sentimental value, before the name "Arizona" was settled upon.
Brigham Young sent Mormons to Arizona in the mid-to-late 19th century. They founded Mesa, Snowflake, Heber, Safford and other towns. They also settled in the Phoenix Valley (or "Valley of the Sun"), Tempe, Prescott, among other areas. The Mormons settled what became known as Northern Arizona and northern New Mexico, but this areas was in fact part of old New Mexico Territory. The largest ancestry of these settlers is German American.
Arizona became a U.S. state on February 14, 1912. Arizona was the 48th state admitted into the U.S. and the last of the contiguous states admitted.
Cotton farming and copper mining, two of Arizona's most important statewide industries, suffered heavily during the Great Depression, but it was during the 1920s and 1930s that tourism began to be the important Arizona industry it is today. Dude ranches such as the K L Bar and Remuda in Wickenburg, along with the Flying V and Tanque Verde in Tucson, gave tourists the chance to experience the flavor and life of the "old West." Several upscale hotels and resorts opened during this period, some of which are still top tourist draws to this day; they include the Arizona Biltmore in central Phoenix (opened 1929) and the Wigwam Resort on the west side of the Phoenix area (opened 1936).
Arizona was the site of German and Italian prisoner of war camps during WWII. The Phoenix area site was purchased after the war by the Maytag family (of major home appliance fame), and is currently utilized as the Phoenix Zoo. A Japanese American internment camp was located on Mount Lemmon, just outside of the state's southeastern city of Tucson. Another POW camp was located near the Gila River in eastern Yuma County.
Arizona's population grew tremendously after World War II, in part because of the development of air conditioning, which made the intense summers more comfortable. According to the Arizona Blue Book (published by the Secretary of State's office each year), the state population in 1910 was 294,353. By 1970 it was 1,752,122. The percentage growth each decade averaged about 20% in the earlier decades and about 60% each decade thereafter.
The 1960's saw the establishment of retirement communities, special age-restricted subdivisions catering exclusively to the needs of senior citizens who wanted to escape the harsh winters of the Midwest and the Northeast. Sun City, established by developer Del Webb and opened in 1960 was one of the first such communities. Green Valley, south of Tucson, was another such community designed to be a retirement subdivision for Arizona's teachers. (Many of these senior citizens arrive in Arizona each winter and stay only during the winter months; they are referred to as snowbirds.)
Three ships named USS Arizona have been named in honor of the state, although only USS Arizona (BB-39) was so named after statehood was achieved.
* Due to its large area and variations in elevation, the state has a wide variety of localized climate conditions. In the lower elevations, the climate is primarily desert, with mild winters and hot summers. Typically, from late fall to early spring, the weather is mild, averaging a minimum of 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15°C). November through February are the coldest months with temperatures typically ranging from 40–75°F (4–24°C), although occasional frosts are not uncommon.
About midway through February, the temperatures start to rise again with warm days, and cool breezy nights. The summer months of May through August bring a dry heat ranging from 90–100°F (32–38°C), with occasional high temperatures exceeding 125°F (52°C) having been observed in the desert area. Due to the primarily dry climate, large temperature swings often occur between day and night, with some as large as 50°F (28°C) in the summer months.
However, the northern third of Arizona is a plateau at significantly higher altitudes than the lower desert, and has an appreciably cooler climate, with cold winters and mild summers. Extreme cold temperatures are not unknown; cold air systems from the northern states and Canada occasionally push into the state, bringing temperatures below 0°F (–18°C) to the higher parts of the state.
Arizona has an average annual rainfall of 12.7 inches (322 mm), which comes during two rainy seasons, with cold fronts coming from the Pacific Ocean during the winter and a monsoon in the summer. The monsoon season occurs from the end of July through August and brings lightning, thunderstorms, wind, and torrential, if usually brief, downpours. It is rare for tornadoes and hurricanes to occur in Arizona, but there are records of both occurring.
Indicative of the variation in climate, Arizona is the state which has both the metropolitan area with the most days over 100°F (37.8°C) (Phoenix), and the metropolitan area in the lower 48 states with the most days with a low temperature below freezing (Flagstaff).
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* This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Source wikipedia.
