Arizona Strip
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The Arizona Strip is that part of the US state of Arizona lying north of the Colorado River and south of the state of Utah.
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[edit] General characteristics
The Strip is very typical of the American West in its red-rock canyon country, and the aridity of the climate, which leads to the predominance of sagebrush vegetation. However the first European settlers were witness to great stretches of grassland in such areas as House Rock Valley which are returning under better ranching practices. The land is also dotted with cedar trees, moving into pinon and juniper forests, and eventually poderosa pines, spruce, firs, and aspen in the higher elevations such as the Kaibab Plateau. It has been divided between Coconino County in the east (west of Kanab Creek) and Mohave County in the west. The only significant settlements are Fredonia on Kanab Creek and Colorado City on the Utah border to the northwest (see also Hildale, Utah). In the extreme west on the Virgin River is the small settlement of Littlefield just off Interstate 15. However, the Strip provides the only route accessing the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and numerous service communities catering to tourists exist along the Strip's main routes.
The Arizona Strip is very sparsely populated and connected to the rest of Arizona by only two highway links, at Navajo Bridge and the Glen Canyon Dam bridge, both at the eastern end of the area and crossing the Colorado River. However it has multiple road links to Utah to the north, and as a result has stronger historic, economic and cultural ties to Utah than to Arizona.
Since the area was first settled by Mormon Pioneers lead by the indominatable Jacob Hamblin in the mid-19th century, the Arizona Strip has been one of the last strongholds of the nineteenth-century practice of polygamy, though this practice was disavowed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) in the 1890's. Over the last century the region has been the subject of controversy because of the control groups such as the United Effort Plan, a polygamist Mormon offshoot, exert within the region. However, such groups remain merely a visible minority.
[edit] Protected Lands
Most of the land in the Arizona Strip is managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management or the United States Forest Service. The area holds several U.S. Wilderness Areas and U.S. National Monuments and the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation. The southern part of the Arizona Strip includes the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park and the northern section of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
[edit] National Monuments
[edit] National Parks
[edit] National Recreation Areas
[edit] Wilderness Areas
- Beaver Dam Mountains
- Grand Wash Cliffs
- Kanab Creek
- Mount Trumbull
- Paiute
- Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs
[edit] Available Maps
[edit] USGS 1:100 000
- Fredonia AZ
- Glen Canyon Dam AZ
- Grand Canyon AZ
- Littlefield AZ
- Mount Trumbull AZ
- Tuba City AZ
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State of Arizona Phoenix (capital) |
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| Topics | Climate | Economy | Education | Geography | History | People | Transportation |
| Regions |
Grand Canyon | Mojave Desert | North Central Arizona | Northeast Arizona | Northern Arizona | Phoenix Metropolitan Area | Southern Arizona | Arizona Strip |
| Counties |
Apache | Cochise | Coconino | Gila | Graham | Greenlee | La Paz | Maricopa | Mohave | Navajo | Pima | Pinal | Santa Cruz | Yavapai | Yuma |
| Cities |
Chandler | Flagstaff | Gilbert | Glendale | Lake Havasu City | Mesa | Peoria | Phoenix | Prescott | Scottsdale | Tempe | Tucson | Yuma |
