Maricopa County is in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census the population was 4,420,568, or about 62% of the state's total, making it the fourth-most populous county in the United States and the most populous county in Arizona, and making Arizona one of the nation's most centralized states. The county seat is Phoenix, the state capital and fifth-most populous city in the United States.
Hohokam was a culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of south-central Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. It existed between 300 and 1500 CE, with cultural precursors possibly as early as 300 BCE. Archaeologists disagree about whether communities that practiced the culture were related or politically united. According to local oral tradition, Hohokam societies may be the ancestors of the historic Akimel and Tohono Oʼodham in Southern Arizona.
The Salt River is a river in Gila and Maricopa counties in Arizona, United States, that is the largest tributary of the Gila River. The river is about 200 miles (320 km) long. Its drainage basin covers about 13,700 square miles (35,000 km2). The longest of the Salt River's many tributaries is the 195-mile (314 km) Verde River. The Salt's headwaters tributaries, the Black River and East Fork, increase the river's total length to about 300 miles (480 km). The name Salt River comes from the river's course over large salt deposits shortly after the merging of the White and Black Rivers.
The Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, metro Phoenix, or The Valley, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the Southwestern United States, with its largest principal city being the city of Phoenix. It includes much of central Arizona. The United States Office of Management and Budget designates the area as the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), defining it as Maricopa and Pinal counties. It anchors the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion along with the second-most populous metropolitan area in the state, the Tucson metropolitan area. The gross domestic product of the Phoenix metropolitan area was $255 billion in 2018, 16th-largest amongst metro areas in the United States.
The Apache Trail in Arizona was a stagecoach trail that ran through the Superstition Mountains. It was named the Apache Trail after the Apache Indians who originally used this trail to move through the Superstition Mountains.
Canyon Lake is one of four reservoirs that were formed by the damming of the Salt River in the U.S. state of Arizona as part of the Salt River Project. It was formed by the Mormon Flat Dam, which was completed in 1925 after two years of construction. Canyon Lake, with a surface area of 950 acres (380 ha), is the third and smallest of the four lakes created along the river. Two others, Apache Lake and Roosevelt Lake, are upstream. The fourth, Saguaro Lake, is downstream.
Lake Murray is a reservoir in San Diego, California, operated by the City of San Diego's Public Utilities Department. When full, the reservoir covers 171.1 acres (69.2 ha), has a maximum water depth of 95 feet (29 m), and a shoreline of 3.2 miles (5.1 km). The asphalt-paved service road lining roughly two-thirds of the lake's perimeter is a popular recreation site for the Navajo community as well as residents of the northernmost neighborhoods in La Mesa. It lies south of Cowles Mountain and a small golf course. It also functions as an important aeronautical reporting point for aircraft inbound to land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport.
The Agua Fria River is a 120-mile (190 km) long intermittent stream which flows generally south from 20 miles (32 km) east-northeast of Prescott in the U.S. state of Arizona. Prescott draws much of its municipal water supply from the upper Agua Fria watershed. The Agua Fria runs through the Agua Fria National Monument. The river then flows through a small canyon called "Black Canyon" into Lake Pleasant, a popular recreation area near Peoria, Arizona. (There is a large "Black Canyon" on the Colorado River along the Arizona–Nevada border.)
Apache Lake is one of four reservoirs built along the Salt River in central Arizona as part of the Salt River Project.
Theodore Roosevelt Lake is a large reservoir formed by Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona as part of the Salt River Project (SRP). Located roughly 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Phoenix in the Salt River Valley, Theodore Roosevelt is the largest lake or reservoir located entirely within the state of Arizona. The reservoir and the masonry dam that created it, Roosevelt Dam, were both named after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt who dedicated the dam himself on March 18, 1911. Roosevelt Lake is a popular recreation destination within the Tonto National Forest; the facilities located at this lake are managed by that authority.
Waddell is an unincorporated community in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, northwest of the city of Phoenix. Waddell is named after Donald Ware Waddell, a native of Ohio, who was a partner in the New York City investment firm of Brandon, Gordon and Waddell. It was this firm that organized the private financing for construction of the dam for the water reclamation project that creates Lake Pleasant. The intended Waddell town site was laid out by Donald W. Waddell in 1935, on property he owned on the northeast corner of Waddell Road and Cotton Lane. Waddell moved to the area to oversee the firm's interests in the project. He served on the board of the Maricopa Water District and invested in land through his interests in the Arizona Citrus Land Company and the Waddell Ranch Company.
Pueblo Grande Ruin and Irrigation Sites are pre-Columbian archaeological sites and ruins, located in Phoenix, Arizona. They include a prehistoric platform mound and irrigation canals. The City of Phoenix manages these resources as the S’edav Va’aki Museum.
The Maricopa Trail is a 315 miles (507 km) trail located within Maricopa County connecting the major regional and municipal parks in and around the Phoenix metropolitan area. A loop trail encircling much of the urbanized area, the trail also consists of four spurs that will connect the loop with outlying mountain parks in the region.
Many arterial roads in the Phoenix metropolitan area have the same name in multiple cities or towns. Some roads change names or route numbers across town borders, resulting in occasional confusion. For example, the road known as Apache Boulevard in Tempe continues east as Main Street in neighboring Mesa and then as Apache Trail in Apache Junction. Although Broadway Road maintains the same name through Goodyear, Avondale, Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, and Apache Junction, each town uses a different reference point for address numbers.
Hundreds of Ancestral Puebloan dwellings are found across the American Southwest. With almost all constructed well before 1492 CE, these Puebloan towns and villages are located throughout the geography of the Southwest.
Deer Valley or Deer Valley Village is one of the 15 urban villages that make up Phoenix, Arizona, United States. As of 2010, the population was 165,656, 25% of whom were under 18 years of age. The origin of the name is unclear; it first appeared on a 1921 United States General Land Office map of the area describing the valley created by Skunk Creek.
Indian Mesa is a flat top hill whose sides are steep cliffs. Indian Mesa is located within the Lake Pleasant Regional Park grounds by the shores of Lake Pleasant and Agua Fria River in the Bradshaw Mountain Range. Lake Pleasant Regional Park is within the municipal boundaries of Peoria, Arizona. On top of the mesa there are ruins of a prehistoric Hohokam village which is monitored by the Arizona Site Stewards and considered an important archaeological site by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. There is a small, steep and narrow path which begins at the skirt of the hill and leads to the top of the mesa.
The following is a timeline of the history of the area which today comprises the U.S. state of Arizona. Situated in the desert southwest, for millennia the area was home to a series of Pre-Columbian peoples. By 1 AD, the dominant groups in the area were the Hohokam, the Mogollon, and the Ancestral Puebloans. The Hohokam dominated the center of the area which is now Arizona, the Mogollon the southeast, and the Puebloans the north and northeast. As these cultures disappeared between 1000 and 1400 AD, other Indian groups settled in Arizona. These tribes included the Navajo, Apache, Southern Paiute, Hopi, Yavapai, Akimel O'odham, and the Tohono O'odham.
La Ciudad is a Hohokam people archaeological site in Phoenix, Arizona, excavated by Frank Midvale 1929–1936. It is covered today by St. Luke's Medical Center. Much of the archaeological material in the Heards' collection at the Heard Museum came from the La Ciudad Indian ruin, which the Heards purchased in 1926 at 19th and Polk streets.
