Geography of Utah

Utah's geography is defined by three major physiographic provinces — the Basin and Range, the Colorado Plateau, and the Middle Rocky Mountains — each contributing to a landscape of extraordinary visual drama.

The Colorado Plateau covers most of southern and eastern Utah and is the defining landscape most people associate with the state. Millions of years of erosion have carved the Colorado Plateau's sedimentary rock into canyons, arches, mesas, and buttes of brilliant red, orange, and white. The Colorado and Green Rivers meet at Confluence in Canyonlands National Park. The Grand Canyon begins where the Colorado exits Utah into Arizona.

The Great Basin occupies the western third of Utah. This is a vast inland basin with no outlet to the sea. The Great Salt Lake — the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere — occupies the lowest point of the Utah Basin. The lake has shrunk dramatically in recent decades due to water diversion for agriculture and a warming climate; it once covered an area the size of Lake Michigan as prehistoric Lake Bonneville.

The Wasatch Range rises abruptly along the state's urban corridor from Ogden through Salt Lake City to Provo. The Wasatch peaks reach over 11,000 feet and receive 500+ inches of snowfall annually at the highest elevations. Seven world-class ski resorts (Alta, Snowbird, Park City, Deer Valley, Brighton, Solitude, and others) operate on these slopes within 45 minutes of the Salt Lake City airport.

The Uinta Mountains in northeastern Utah are the only major US mountain range with a primary east-west axis. Kings Peak (13,534 feet) is Utah's highest point. The Uintas contain the largest wilderness area in Utah and some of the most remote alpine lake country in the West.

The Four Corners — the only point in the US where four states meet — is in southeastern Utah's canyon country, where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico converge.