Portal:Utah

Coordinates: 39°18′N 111°36′W / 39.3°N 111.6°W / 39.3; -111.6
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Location of Utah
The flag of Utah

Utah (/ˈjuːtɑː/ YOO-tah, /ˈjuːtɔː/ YOO-taw; Navajo: Áshįįh Biiʼtó Hahoodzo) is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular. (Full article...)

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Green valley with pink cliffs on sides.
Paria View overlooks an intermittent stream flowing toward the Paria River, some 8 miles (13 km) to the east. About 2 miles (3 km) away is the Paunsaugunt Fault; a normal fault along which the Paria River valley is subsiding on one side while the Paunsaugunt Plateau rises on the other. The pink-colored cliffs, alcoves and amphitheaters along the eroding eastern face of the plateau expose the approximately 50-million-year-old Claron Formation.

The exposed geology of the Bryce Canyon area in Utah shows a record of deposition that covers the last part of the Cretaceous Period and the first half of the Cenozoic era in that part of North America. The ancient depositional environment of the region around what is now Bryce Canyon National Park varied from the warm shallow sea (called the Cretaceous Seaway) in which the Dakota Sandstone and the Tropic Shale were deposited to the cool streams and lakes that contributed sediment to the colorful Claron Formation that dominates the park's amphitheaters.

Other formations were also formed but were mostly eroded following uplift from the Laramide orogeny which started around 70 million years ago (Mya). This event raised the Rocky Mountains far to the east and caused the retreat of the sea that covered the Bryce Canyon area. After Laramide mountain building came to an end, about 15 mya, a large part of western North America began to be stretched into the nearby Basin and Range topography. The greater Bryce area was uplifted as part of the High Plateaus by the same forces. Uplift of the Colorado Plateaus and the opening of the Gulf of California by 5 mya changed the drainage of the Colorado River and its tributaries, including the Paria River, which is eroding headward between two plateaus adjacent to the park. The uplift caused the formation of vertical joints which were later preferentially eroded to form the free-standing pinnacles called hoodoos, badlands, and monoliths we see today. (Full article...)
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2002 Winter Olympics cauldron
2002 Winter Olympics cauldron
Credit: Scott Catron
The cauldron used for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah was moved from the top of the Olympic stadium and now anchors the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Cauldron Park just south of Rice-Eccles Stadium. The flame is lit on special occasions, such as the opening weekend of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

April selected anniversaries

  • April 14, 1983 - a landslide leads to the destruction of Thistle, Utah.
  • April 15, 1948 - Utah's first television station, W6SIX, begins broadcasting.

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Fawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974), a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History (1945), an early biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Raised in Utah in a respected, if impoverished, family who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), Fawn McKay drifted away from Mormonism during her years of graduate work at the University of Chicago and married Bernard Brodie, an academic who became a national defense expert; they had three children. Although Fawn Brodie eventually became one of the first tenured female professors of history at UCLA, she is best known for her five biographies, four of which incorporate insights from Freudian psychology. (Full article...)

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Ute (/ˈjt/) are the indigenous, or Native American people, of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado.

In addition to their ancestral lands within Colorado and Utah, their historic hunting grounds extended into current-day Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. The tribe also had sacred grounds outside their home domain that were visited seasonally. (Full article...)
Brent Scowcroft (center) with Dick Cheney and William Webster
Brent Scowcroft (center) with Dick Cheney and William Webster

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Moab, Utah
Moab, Utah
Credit: User:Diliff
Moab, Utah, from the northern canyon walls that surround it.

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39°18′N 111°36′W / 39.3°N 111.6°W / 39.3; -111.6