Washington County is a county in the southwestern corner of Utah, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 180,279, making it the fifth-most populous county in Utah. Its county seat and largest city is St. George. The county was created in 1852 and organized in 1856. It was named after the first President of the United States, George Washington. A portion of the Paiute Indian Reservation is in western Washington County. Washington County comprises the St. George, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Mojave Desert is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the indigenous Mohave people, it is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
The Virgin River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. The river is about 162 miles (261 km) long. It was designated Utah's first wild and scenic river in 2009, during the centennial celebration of Zion National Park.
The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately 183 miles (295 km) long. It drains into and through the Owens Valley, an arid basin between the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and the western faces of the Inyo and White Mountains. The river terminates at the endorheic Owens Lake south of Lone Pine, at the bottom of a 2,600 sq mi (6,700 km2) watershed.
The Verde River is a major tributary of the Salt River in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is about 170 miles (270 km) long and carries a mean flow of 602 cubic feet per second (17.0 m3/s) at its mouth. It is one of the largest perennial streams in Arizona.
The Hualapai Mountains are a mountain range located in Mohave County, east of Kingman, Arizona. Rising up to 8,417 feet at its highest peak, the higher elevations of the Hualapai Mountains support Madrean Sky Island habitats, and are host to a plethora of unique flora and fauna in a wide range of microclimates, high above the surrounding Mojave Desert.
The Turtle Mountains, are located in northeastern San Bernardino County, in the southeastern part of California. The colorful Turtle Mountains vary from deep reds, browns, tans and grays, to black. The area has numerous springs and seeps. The Turtle Mountains are also a National Natural Landmark, with two mountain sections of entirely different composition.
The Whipple Mountains are located in eastern San Bernardino County, California. They are directly west of the Colorado River, Parker Dam, and Lake Havasu; south of Needles, California; north of Parker, Arizona and Vidal, California; and northeast of Vidal Junction, California.
The Beaver Dam Mountains Wilderness is a wilderness area located in northwestern Arizona and southwestern Utah, USA, within the arid Colorado Plateau region. The jagged mountains and gently sloping alluvial plain of the Beaver Dam Mountains straddle the border between the two states. The Wilderness contains some of the lowest elevation land in Utah, and includes a 13 miles (21 km) section of the Virgin River Gorge. The area comprises some 18,667 acres (7,554 ha), 15,000 acres (6,100 ha) of which in Arizona and approximately 3,667 acres (1,484 ha) in Utah. The area was designated Wilderness by the U.S. Congress in 1984 and is administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
Old Woman Mountains Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Old Woman Mountains of the eastern Mojave Desert. It is located south of Essex in San Bernardino County, California.
The mountains in the McCullough Range lie mostly above the city of Henderson in the U.S. state of Nevada. The range has two distinct areas with the northern portion being primarily volcanic in origin, while the southern part of the range is primarily composed of metamorphic rock.
Arizona is a landlocked state situated in the southwestern region of the United States of America. It has a vast and diverse geography famous for its deep canyons, high- and low-elevation deserts, numerous natural rock formations, and volcanic mountain ranges. Arizona shares land borders with Utah to the north, the Mexican state of Sonora to the south, New Mexico to the east, and Nevada to the northwest, as well as water borders with California and the Mexican state of Baja California to the southwest along the Colorado River. Arizona is also one of the Four Corners states and is diagonally adjacent to Colorado.
Arrow Canyon Wilderness is a 27,530-acre (11,140 ha) wilderness area located in Clark County in the U.S. state of Nevada. It received wilderness designation with the passage of the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002 and protects the northern portion of the Arrow Canyon Range. The Arrow Canyon Wilderness is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Piper Mountain Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area located in the White Mountains 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Big Pine, California in Inyo County, California.
The deserts of California are the distinct deserts that each have unique ecosystems and habitats. The deserts are home to a sociocultural and historical "Old West" collection of legends, districts, and communities, and they also form a popular tourism region of dramatic natural features and recreational development. Part of this region was even proposed to become a new county due to cultural, economic and geographic differences relative to the rest of the more urban region.
The Great Basin montane forests is an ecoregion of the Temperate coniferous forests biome, as designated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Yellow Knolls, of Arizona, is a prominence in the Virgin River Gorge's east end, located in Mohave County, part of the Arizona Strip of northwest Arizona. Yellow Knolls is located on the north side of Interstate 15, and is also in the south of the Beaver Dam Mountains Wilderness.
The Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area is a 63,500-acre (257 km2) United States National Conservation Area located in southwest Utah west of St. George along the borders with Arizona and Nevada. It is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System, and was authorized in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.
