Utah - The Wasatch Front, the Mighty 5, and 3.4 Million Residents
Roughly 3.4 million people live in Utah, about 80 percent of them strung along the Wasatch Front, a corridor of urbanized valleys that runs roughly 120 miles from Ogden in the north through Salt Lake City to Provo in the south. The Wasatch Range rises sharply to the east of this strip, and the Great Salt Lake lies to the west. Salt Lake City, the capital, has about 200,000 residents inside city limits and anchors a metro of roughly 1.3 million. The city hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and has been selected to host the Winter Games again in 2034.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, and Utah remains the only majority-LDS state in the country. Brigham Young University in Provo, sponsored by the church, enrolls about 34,000 students and consistently ranks among the largest private universities in the United States. The University of Utah in Salt Lake City is the flagship public institution, with a medical school and hospital system serving the Mountain West.
Silicon Slopes, the technology cluster running along Interstate 15 from Salt Lake County through Utah County, has grown rapidly since the 2010s. Adobe expanded its Lehi campus, Qualtrics is headquartered in Provo, Domo is in American Fork, and dozens of other software and fintech firms have concentrated in the corridor. The Salt Lake City International Airport opened a new terminal in 2020 and serves as a Delta Air Lines hub.
Southern Utah is another world entirely. The Mighty 5 national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands) draw more than 10 million visitors a year combined, and the red rock country surrounding them includes Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Lake Powell. In the Wasatch Mountains above Salt Lake, the ski resorts at Alta, Snowbird, and Park City draw on the dry powder snow that the state markets as the Greatest Snow on Earth. The Great Salt Lake itself has shrunk significantly over the past two decades because of drought and upstream water diversions, and the resulting dust and ecological concerns are an active policy issue.
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Roughly 3.4 million people live in Utah, about 80 percent of them strung along the Wasatch Front, a corridor of urbanized valleys that runs roughly 120 miles from Ogden in the north through Salt Lake City to Provo in the south. The Wasatch Range rises sharply to the east of this strip, and the Great Salt Lake lies to the west. Salt Lake City, the capital, has about 200,000 residents inside city limits and anchors a metro of roughly 1.3 million. The city hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and has been selected to host the Winter Games again in 2034.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, and Utah remains the only majority-LDS state in the country. Brigham Young University in Provo, sponsored by the church, enrolls about 34,000 students and consistently ranks among the largest private universities in the United States. The University of Utah in Salt Lake City is the flagship public institution, with a medical school and hospital system serving the Mountain West.
Silicon Slopes, the technology cluster running along Interstate 15 from Salt Lake County through Utah County, has grown rapidly since the 2010s. Adobe expanded its Lehi campus, Qualtrics is headquartered in Provo, Domo is in American Fork, and dozens of other software and fintech firms have concentrated in the corridor. The Salt Lake City International Airport opened a new terminal in 2020 and serves as a Delta Air Lines hub.
Southern Utah is another world entirely. The Mighty 5 national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands) draw more than 10 million visitors a year combined, and the red rock country surrounding them includes Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Lake Powell. In the Wasatch Mountains above Salt Lake, the ski resorts at Alta, Snowbird, and Park City draw on the dry powder snow that the state markets as the Greatest Snow on Earth. The Great Salt Lake itself has shrunk significantly over the past two decades because of drought and upstream water diversions, and the resulting dust and ecological concerns are an active policy issue.
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