•      Phoenix is the United States' fifth-largest city with a population of nearly 1.4 million.

•      Greater Phoenix has a population of 3.4 million and covers 2,000 square miles.

•      Maricopa County-where Greater Phoenix is located-covers 9,127 square miles.

•      Phoenix's elevation is 1,117 feet.

•      Greater Phoenix is located in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.

•      Phoenix has an average annual rainfall of 7.66 inches, an average annual high temperature of 85 degrees and averages 300 sun-filled days per year.

•      Phoenix hosted the NFL's Super Bowl XXX, January 28, 1996 and will be the home to the 2008 Super Bowl also.

•      Phoenix hosted the 2001 World Series and is the home of the World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

•      Phoenix was selected the "Best-Run City in the World" in 1993 by the Carl Bertelsmann Foundation and the "Best Managed" city by Governing magazine in 2000.

•      The area's major industries are 1) high-tech manufacturing, 2) tourism, 3) construction.

•      Greater Phoenix has consistently ranked among the nation's top cities in the number of Five and Four Diamond / Five and Four Star resorts.

•      Metro Phoenix has more than 55,000 hotel rooms.

•      Greater Phoenix is home to over 200 golf courses.

•      Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is served by 23 airlines.

•      More than 13 million people visit Phoenix each year. More than 29 million people visit Arizona each year.

•      Visitors to Greater Phoenix account for about $6 billion in expenditures each year.

•      The typical visitor to Phoenix is 53 years old, has an average annual income of $50,000 and will spend 5.4 nights in the metro area.

•      62 percent of all Greater Phoenix visitors are leisure travelers, while 38 percent visit for convention or business reasons.

•      8 out of 10 Greater Phoenix visitors plan to return for future visits.

•      Metro Phoenix is home to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (college football festival), The Insight
Bowl (college football), Arizona Cardinals (NFL), Arizona Diamondbacks (MLB), Phoenix Suns (NBA), Phoenix Coyotes (NHL), Arizona Rattlers (arena football) and the Phoenix Mercury (WNBA).

•      Phoenix joined the ranks of Major League Baseball cities in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks began play at Chase Field.

•      Three pro golf tournaments have regular stops in Phoenix: The FBR Phoenix Open (PGA), The Safeway International LPGA Tournament, the Standard Register Turquoise Classic (LPGA) and The Nationwide Tour Stop’s Gila River Classic.

•      Greater Phoenix plays host to nine major league baseball teams each spring as part of the Cactus League. The San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers and Anaheim Angels conduct their annual training programs in the metro area while the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and the Chicago White Sox train in Tucson.

•      Phoenix is home to many different motor sports. Included are Indy Car and NASCAR events at Phoenix International Raceway, drag racing at Manzanita Speedway and boat racing at Firebird International Raceway.

•      Phoenix is home to the largest municipal park in the world. South Mountain Park covers more than 20,000 acres. The area has more than 1,700 acres of traditional park land.

•      There are six lakes within a 75-minute drive of Phoenix.

•      Phoenix has museums to suit nearly every taste. The Heard Museum (Native American); Desert Botanical Garden (the world's largest collection of desert plants); Taliesin West (home of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation); the Phoenix Art Museum (the Southwest's largest art museum); The Fleischer Museum (American Impressionism); The Arizona Science Center; The Hall of Flame (featuring the world's largest collection of fire-fighting equipment); Pueblo Grande Museum and Cultural Park (Native American) and the Phoenix Museum of History are among the cultural hot spots.

•      The Heard Museum has an extensive collection of Native American artifacts, including the largest kachina doll collection-donated in part by the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater-of any museum in the country.

•      Arizona is home to 23 reservations representing 21 different Native American tribes.

•      The Grand Canyon is 227 miles long, 1 mile deep, and has an average width of 10 miles.

•      Navajo Community College in Tsaile, was the first college on an Indian reservation.

•      Arizona observes Mountain Standard Time on a year round basis, never observing daylight savings time

•      Arizona is roughly the size of Italy.

•      Arizona has more parks and national monuments than any other state, more mountains than Switzerland, and more golf courses than Scotland.

•      The hottest recorded day in Phoenix was June 26, 1990, when the temperature hit 122 degrees.

•      The original London Bridge was shipped stone-by-stone and reconstructed in Lake Havasu City.

•      In World War II, many Navajos enlisted as secret agents.  Our enemies could never understand the Navajo language to learn our military secrets.

•      The sun shines in southern Arizona 85% of the time, which is considerably more sunshine
than Florida or Hawaii.  Arizona also frequently has the hottest and coldest temperatures on the same day. The temperature could be 75 degrees in the desert to 45 degrees in the high country.

•      Camels were used at one time to transport goods across Arizona.

•      Four Corners is the spot in the United States where a person can stand in four states at the same time.

•      Historically, Arizona’s strongest economic support came from the Four C’s – cotton, copper, cattle, and citrus.  In recent years, a fifth – climate – has been added.

•      Arizona has the largest percentage of its land set aside and designated as Indian lands.

•      The Anasazi Indians made waterproof baskets that they cooked in.  They put hot rocks in with the food to cook it.

•      The world’s largest solar telescope is located at Kitts Peak National Observatory in the city of Sells.

•      The Navajo Reservation, the nation's largest reservation, lies primarily in Arizona and extends into Utah and New Mexico.

•      In 1876 the Chiricahua Apache chief Geronimo began ten years of raids against white settlements when the U.S. government attempted to move his tribe from their traditional home in Arizona to a reservation in New Mexico.

•      Arizona became the home of the first major irrigation project by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation when former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt dedicated a dam on the Salt River in 1911.

 

Some Famous Arizona Natives

Joan Ganz Cooney (1929 - ) Producer of Sesame Street; born in Phoenix.

Geronimo (1829 - 1909) Leader of the Apache Indians that fought the U.S. settlements until
1886; born in Clifton.

Linda Ronstadt (1946 - ) Singer, born in Tucson.

John McCain (1936 - ) Arizona Senator and war hero.  Presidential Candidate in 2000.

David Spade (1965 - ) Comedian/actor, Raised in Scottsdale.

Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) Author of many popular Western novels; lives near Payson.

Sandra Day O’Conner (1930 - ) The first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court
in 1981.

Cesar Estrada Chavez (1927 - 1993) Founded and led the first successful farm workers' union
in U.S. history, born in Yuma.

Phil Mickelson (1970 - ) Professional golfer, Scottsdale resident.

Steven Spielberg (1946 - ) Film director, raised in Phoenix.

Helen Hull Jacobs (1908 - 1197) Tennis champion, writer; born in Globe.

Stewart Udall (1920 - ) Former Secretary of the Interior; born in St. Johns.

1540—Spanish Francisco Vasquez de Coronado explores Arizona
1752—The first European settlement in Tubac
1821—Arizona becomes part of Mexico
1848—Most of Arizona is given to the U.S. at the end of the Mexican War
1853—The Gadsden Purchase gives the rest of Arizona to the U.S.
1863—The Arizona Territory is created
1877—The first railroad enters Arizona
1886—The end of the Indian Wars
1912—Arizona becomes the 48th state
1936—Hoover Dam is completed
1948—Arizona Indians are given the right to vote
1991—The Central Arizona Project is completed

State History

Hopi, Pima, and Papago Indians, descendants of the Anasazi and Hohkam, lived in Arizona when Navajo and Apache Indians migrated to the area.  A short time later, European exploration of Arizona began.

In 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado of Spain came searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola.  Coronado never finds the cities said to be made of gold, but claims Arizona as part of New Spain.

In the 1600’s, Spain colonized the area with military posts and missions, attempting to convert the natives to Roman Catholicism and teach them Spanish civilization.  In 1752, after many revolts from the Pima and Papago tribes, the first permanent settlement was established in Tubac.  In 1776, another Spanish fort was placed in Tucson.  Both were built with thick adobe walls to protect the soldiers and their families.

In 1821, Mexico gained military control of Arizona.  That same year, trappers and traders from the United States came into the area.  In 1848, the United States won the Mexican War and gained all of Arizona north of the Gila River.  In 1853, the United States acquired the remaining land southward due to the Gadsden Purchase.

Miners discovered copper and gold and began settling the area.  They soon felt they were too far away from the capital of New Mexico to be rightly governed, and wanted a separate territory.  During the Civil War Arizona Southerners called a convention in Tucson and declared themselves a Confederate territory.  In 1863, after the war President Lincoln approved Congress in organizing the Arizona Territory.  The capital was first established in Prescott, in 1867 changed to Tucson, and was eventually moved in 1889 to Phoenix.

Mining towns exploded in the 1870s, finding much gold, silver and copper. In 1879 Wyatt Earp, settled in Tombstone.  Earp worked first as the deputy sheriff of Pima County and later as deputy U.S. marshal for the entire Arizona Territory. Earp and three of his brothers, together with Doc Holliday, became famous in the O.K. Corral gunfight in 1881, when they killed several suspected cattle rustlers.

The Indian Wars ended in 1886, with the surrender of the Apache Indians.  Most of Arizona’s Indians were now living on reservations.  As the army reduced the threat of raids, and the railroad reached Arizona in 1877, cattle ranching expanded into central and southeastern Arizona.  Farmers planted cotton, vegetable gardens, and fruit trees.  Religious settlers also started migrating from Utah.

The first bill for statehood was introduced and defeated in Congress in 1889.  Congress wanted Arizona and New Mexico to be a single state. Arizonians voted in 1906 to reject this plan, and in January 1910 they held a constitutional convention within the state to begin writing their state constitution.  In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state with Phoenix as the state capital. This completed the continental United States.

In 1917, the United States joined World War I against Germany.  The Zimmerman Telegram was one reason we joined the war.  It was sent from Germany to Mexico, and said that if Mexico helped Germany fight in the war, Mexico would regain Arizona. In 1911, President Roosevelt dedicated a dam that was named after him.  The Coolidge Dam, the Bartlett Dam, and the Hoover Dam followed.

During World War II, Army Air Corps pilots trained in Arizona.  The resources of cotton, copper, and beef were needed to provide materials for the war.  These new job opportunities, and the introduction of air conditioning attracted people from all over the country to Arizona.

Since the 1950s, Arizona’s population has grown quickly.  It almost tripled from 1960-1990.  With this rapid growth came a need for more water.  In 1963, the Supreme Court decided on a proper division of water from the Colorado River, between Arizona, Nevada and California.  However, more water was needed.  In 1985, the Central Arizona Project brought more water from the Colorado River by pipeline to Phoenix, and in 1991 to Tucson.  The project includes 541 km (336 mi) of pipeline and cost $3.7 billion.

In 1974 the US Congress divided the Hopi Reservation between the Hopi and the Navajo Indians.