Arizona is a U.S. state located in the Southwestern United States. It is best known for its desertlandscape, which includes cacti. Arizona is also known for its exceptionally hot summers and mild winters. Less well known is the pine-covered high country in the north-central portion of the state, which contrasts with the lower deserts of the state.
Arizona is best known for its desertlandscape, which is rich in xerophyte plants such as cactus. It is also known for its climate, which presents exceptionally hot summers and mild winters. Less well known is the pine-covered high country of the Colorado Plateau in the north-central portion of the state, which contrasts with the desertic Basin and Range region in the southern portions of the state.
Like other states of the Southwest, Arizona has an abundance of topographical characteristics in addition to its desert climes. More than half of the state features mountains and plateaus and contains the largest stand of Ponderosa pine in the United States. The Mogollon Rim, a 2000-foot (600 m) escarpment, cuts across the central section of the state and marks the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, where the state experienced its worst forest fire ever in 2002. Arizona belongs firmly within the Basin and Range province of North America. The region was shaped by prehistoric volcanism, followed by a cooling-off and related subsidence. The entire region is slowly sinking.
The Canyon, created by the Colorado River cutting a channel over millions of years, is about 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6 to 29 kilometers) and attains a depth of more than 1 mile (1.6 km). Nearly 2 billion years of the Earth's history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of sediment as the Colorado Plateaus have uplifted.
Due to its large area and variations in elevation, the state has a wide variety of localized climate conditions. In the lower elevations, the climate is primarily desert, with mild winters and hot summers.Typically, from late fall to early spring, the weather is mild, averaging a minimum of 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15°C). November through February are the coldest months with temperatures typically ranging from 40â€"75°F (4â€"24°C), although occasional frosts are not uncommon. About midway through February, the temperatures start to rise again with warm days, and cool breezy nights. The summer months of May through August bring a dry heat ranging from 90â€"120°F (32â€"48°C), with occasional high temperatures exceeding 125°F (52°C) having been observed in the desert area. Due to the primarily dry climate, large temperature swings often occur between day and night, with some as large as 50°F (28°C) in the summer months.
However, the northern third of Arizona is a plateau at significantly higher altitudes than the lower desert, and has an appreciably cooler climate, with cold winters and mild summers. Extreme cold temperatures are not unknown; cold air systems from the northern states and Canada occasionally push into the state, bringing temperatures below 0°F (â€"18°C) to the higher parts of the state.
Arizona has an average annual rainfall of 12.7 inches (322 mm)
Historians disagree about the origin of the name "Arizona" and its attachment to the region. Three possible derivations are: *O'odham words "alÄ á¹£on" ("small spring"), actually the name of a town which is called "Arizonac" in English. Arizonac is a small town about eight miles (12 km) south of the United Statesâ€"Mexican border. Historically, it may have been "alÄ son" or even "alÄ sona". The O'odham "l" is a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, which might sound to a Spanish or English speaker like an "r" sound. Later in the mid 18th century Spanish missionaries changed Father Eusebio Francisco Kino's maps of the area; they renamed the town Arizonac as Arizona. As the maps were republished and circulated in Europe, the name Arizona became attached to the whole northern part of New Spain. *Spanish words "árida zona" ("arid zone"). *A Nahuatl or Aztec word "arizuma" meaning "silver-bearing".
Meeting its original native inhabitants, Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan, explored the area in 1539. Coronado's expedition entered the area in 1540–42 during its search for CÃbola. Father Kino developed a chain of missions and taught the Indians Christianity in PimerÃa Alta (now southern Arizona and northern Sonora) in the 1690s and early 1700s. Spain founded fortified towns (presidios) at Tubac in 1752 and Tucson in 1775. All of what is now Arizona became part of Mexico's northwest frontier upon the Mexican assertion of independence from Spain in 1810. The United States took possession of most of Arizona at the end of the Mexican War in 1848, after paying the Mexican government. In 1853 the land below the Gila River was acquired from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. Arizona was administered as part of the Territory of New Mexico until it was organized into a separate territory on February 24, 1863.
Other names including "Gadsonia", "Pimeria", "Montezuma", "Arizuma", and "Arizonia" had been considered for the territory [1], however when President Lincoln signed the final bill, it read "Arizona", and the name became permanent. Montezuma was not the Mexican Emperor, but the sacred name of a divine hero to the Pueblo people of the Gila valley, and was probably considered — and rejected — for its sentimental value, before the name "Arizona" was settled upon.
Arizona became a U.S. state on February 14, 1912. Arizona was the 48th state admitted into the U.S. and the last of the contiguous states admitted.
Cotton farming and copper mining, two of Arizona's most important statewide industries, suffered heavily during the Great Depression, but it was during the 1920s and 1930s that tourism began to be the important Arizona industry it is today. Dude ranches such as the K L Bar and Remuda in Wickenburg, along with the Flying V and Tanque Verde in Tucson, gave tourists the chance to experience the flavor and life of the "old West." Several upscale hotels and resorts opened during this period, some of which are still top tourist draws to this day; they include the Arizona Biltmore in central Phoenix (opened 1929) and the Wigwam Resort on the west side of the Phoenix area (opened 1936).
Arizona was the site of German and Italian prisoner of war camps during WWII. The Phoenix area site was purchased after the war by the Maytag family (of major home appliance fame), and is currently utilized as the Phoenix Zoo. A Japanese American internment camp was located on Mount Lemmon, just outside of the state's southeastern city of Tucson. Another POW camp was located near the Gila River in eastern Yuma County.
Arizona's population grew tremendously after World War II, in part because of the development of air conditioning, which made the intense summers more comfortable. According to the Arizona Blue Book (published by the Secretary of State's office each year), the state population in 1910 was 294,353. By 1970 it was 1,752,122. The percentage growth each decade averaged about 20% in the earlier decades and about 60% each decade thereafter.
The 1960's saw the establishment of retirement communities, special age-restricted subdivisions catering exclusively to the needs of senior citizens who wanted to escape the harsh winters of the Midwest and the Northeast. Sun City, established by developer Del Webb and opened in 1960 was one of the first such communities. Green Valley, south of Tucson, was another such community designed to be a retirement subdivision for Arizona's teachers. (Many of these senior citizens arrive in Arizona each winter and stay only during the winter months; they are referred to as snowbirds.)
Three ships named USS Arizona have been named in honor of the state, although only USS Arizona (BB-39) was so named after statehood was achieved.
As of 2005, Arizona had an estimated population of 5,939,292, which is an increase of 199,413, or 3.5%, from the prior year and an increase of 808,660, or 15.8%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 241,732 people (that is 462,739 births minus 221,007 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 576,238 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 168,078 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 408,160 people.
According to 2003 U.S. Census estimates, Arizona has the second highest number (and the sixth highest percentage) of Native Americans of any state in the Union. 286,680 were estimated to live in Arizona, representing more than 10% of the country's total Indian population of 2,752,158. Only California has more Indians than Arizona, and Arizona has slightly more Indians than Oklahoma [2]. The perimeters of Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, and Yuma abut Indian reservations.
The largest ancestry groups in Arizona are Mexican (21%), German, English, Irish, and Native American. The southern and central parts of the state are heavily Mexican-American, especially in Santa Cruz County and Yuma County near the Mexican border. The north-central and northwestern counties are largely inhabited by residents of English ancestry. The northeastern part of Arizona has many American Indians.
Arizona is projected to become a minority-majority state by the year 2035, if current population growth trends continue. In 2003, for the first time, there were more Hispanic births in the state than white (non-Hispanic) births.
As of 2000, 74.1% of Arizona residents age 5 and older speak only English at home and 19.5% speak Spanish. Navajo is the third most spoken language at 1.9%, followed by other Native North American languages at 0.6% and German at 0.5%.
The 2004 total gross state product was $187 billion. If Arizona (and each of the other US states) were an independent country along with all existing countries (2005), it would have the 61st largest economy in the world (CIA - The World Factbook). This figure gives Arizona a larger economy than such countries as Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Ireland, Finland, and New Zealand. Arizona currently has the 21st largest economy among states in the U.S..
The state's per capita income is $27,232, 39th in the U.S. Early in its history, Arizona's economy relied on the "Five C's": copper, cotton, cattle, citrus, and climate (tourism). At one point Arizona was the largest producer of cotton in the country. Copper is still extensively mined from many expansive open-pit and underground mines, accounting for two-thirds of the nation's output.
Employment
The state government is Arizona's largest employer, while Wal-Mart is the state's largest private employer, with 17,343 employees (2003). Arizona lost much of its comparative advantage as a high-tech industry leader between 1990 and 2001, according to a state Department of Commerce report.
In 2001, 161,166 Arizonans were employed in the high-tech sector, accounting for about 8.3 percent of total private-sector employment of more than 1.9 million. High-tech payroll in 2001 was $2.2 billion, or 14.7 percent of the private-sector total. High-tech employment was led by software and computers, with 34,314; electronics components manufacturing, 30,358; aerospace manufacturing, 25,641; architectural and engineering services, 21,378; telecommunications, 21,224; and instruments manufacturing, 13,056.
Taxation
Arizona collects personal income taxes in five brackets: 2.87 percent, 3.20 percent, 3.74 percent, 4.72 percent and 5.04 percent. Arizona Transaction Privilege Tax (sales) and Use tax rates generally are 6.3 percent.
The state rate on transient lodging (hotel/motel) is 7.27%. The state of Arizona does not levy a state tax on food for home consumption or on drugs prescribed by a licensed physician or dentist. However, some cities in Arizona do levy a tax on food for home consumption.
All fifteen Arizona counties levy a tax.
Incorporated municipalities also levy transaction privilege taxes which, with the exception of their hotel/motel tax, are generally in the range of 1-to-3 percent. These added assessments could push the combined sales tax rate to as high as 10.7 percent.
Main interstate routes include I-17, and I-19 running north-south, and I-40, I-8, I-10 running east-west, and a short stretch of I-15 running NE through the NW corner of the state.
Phoenix is served by a network of freeways, many of which were initiated by a 1/2 cent general sales tax measure approved by voters in 1985. Before this network, I-10 and I-17 handled almost all freeway traffic in Phoenix, placing a large burden on surface arterial streets, leading to increased traffic congestion as the area grew in size.
I-10 (the Maricopa and Papago Freeways) from Los Angeles travels from the west through downtown, and exits the metro area in a southeast direction towards Tucson. I-17 (the Black Canyon Freeway) begins in downtown Phoenix and travels north to Flagstaff. US 60 (the Superstition Freeway) also travels through the heart of the city, heading northwest through the suburbs of Glendale, Peoria, and Surprise. It also exits to the east of downtown, travelling through the suburbs of Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, and Apache Junction, and beyond. State Route Loop 101 (the Agua Fria, Price, and Pima Freeways) is also a major highway that forms a semicircle around the northern suburbs of the city, starting from I-10 in the west and travelling around to the Santan portion of Loop 202 in the southeast.
The new freeways started after the 1985 sales tax approval are: Arizona 51, Loop 101, Arizona 143 (the Hohokam Expressway), 153 (the Sky Harbor Expressway), Loop 202 (the Red Mountain and Santan Freeways), and Loop 303 (the Estrella Freeway), and the final section of I-10. Most of these have been completed by 2005, with Loop 202 and Loop 303 being in the final stages of construction and development.
Arizona 51 (the Piestewa Freeway) connects downtown and central Phoenix with north Phoenix and Paradise Valley, and connects with the aforementioned Loop 101 at its northern end. 2/3 of this route was opened in 1999 and the remainder in 2003. It had been known as the Squaw Peak Parkway (for a nearby mountain), but this name was considered offensive to those in the Native American community. Both the road and the mountain were re-named in the spring of 2003 for US Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a member of the Hopi tribe, the first woman to die in combat during the current Iraq War and the first Native American woman to die in combat while in the US Army.
Tucson is primarily served by I-10 and I-19. I-19 spilts off from I-10 in the southern part of Tucson, runs through southern Tucson (including an exit serving the historic Mission San Xavier) and the retirement community of Green Valley, and terminates in Nogales, in Santa Cruz County, at the international border with Mexico. Mileage signs have metric mileage figures in kilometers instead of standard miles.
State Route 210 (Barraza Aviation Parkway) is a limited-access parkway built in the early 1990's to connect downtown Tucson to the southeastern portion of the city. Few new limited-access roads are in the plans in Tucson due to strong community opposition to freeways.
As recently as 1959, many roads such as State Highway 87, the Beeline Highway between Phoenix and the small community of Payson in Gila County, were unpaved.
Yuma and Casa Grande are served by I-8; Flagstaff is served by I-17 and I-40. US Highway 95 parallels the Colorado River, from Las Vegas to the Mexican border near Yuma.
Historic U.S. Route 66, a major route for Midwestern emigrants prior to the advent of the interstate highway system, traversed the northern part of the state, passing through Flagstaff and Kingman. Route 66 in Arizona closely followed the route of what is now Interstate 40 except for an 88 mile stretch between Seligman and Kingman, now known as Arizona State Highway 66, where the route veered to the north passing through Peach Springs.
Public transportation and intercity bus
The Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas are served by public bus transit systems. Yuma and Flagstaff also have public bus systems. Greyhound Lines serves Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Yuma, and several smaller communities statewide.
A light rail system is currently being built in Phoenix. When completed, it will connect Central Phoenix with the nearby cities of Mesa and Tempe. The system is projected to be operational by December of 2008.
In May 2006, voters in Tucson approved a Regional Transportation Plan (a comprehensive bus transit/streetcar/roadway improvement program), and its funding via a new half-cent sales tax increment. The centerpiece of the plan is a light rail streetcar system that will connect the main University of Arizona campus with the Rio Nuevo master plan area on the western edge of downtown. [3]
The state capital of Arizona is in Phoenix. The original Capitol building, with its distinctive copper dome, was dedicated in 1901 (construction was completed for $136,000 in 1900), when the area was still a territory. Phoenix became the official state capital with Arizona's admission to the union in 1912.
Separate legislative buildings for the House of Representatives and Senate were dedicated in 1960, and an Executive Office Building was dedicated in 1974 (the ninth floor of this building is where the Office of the Governor is located). The original Capitol building was converted into a museum.
The Capitol complex is fronted and highlighted by the richly landscaped Wesley Bolin Memorial Park, named after Wesley Bolin, a governor who died in office in the 1970's. Numerous monuments and memorials are on the site, including the anchor and signal mast from the USS Arizona (one of the U.S. Navy ships sunk in Pearl Harbor); a granite version of the Ten Commandments; and the Arizona Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.
Arizona's legislature is bicameral (like the legislature of every other state except Nebraska) and consists of a thirty-member Senate and a 60-member House of Representatives. Legislators are elected for two-year terms.
Each Legislature covers a two-year period. The first session following the general election is known as the first regular session, and the session convening in the second year is known as the second regular session. Each regular session begins on the second Monday in January and adjourns sine die (terminates for the year) no later than Saturday of the week in which the 100th day from the beginning of the regular session falls. The President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, by rule, may extend the session up to seven additional days. Thereafter, the session can only be extended by a majority vote of members present of each house.
The current majority party is the Republican Party, which has held power since 1950.
The fiscal year 2006-07 general fund budget, approved by the Arizona Legislature in June 2006, is slightly less than $10 billion. Besides the money spent on state agencies, it also includes more than $500 million in income- and property tax cuts, pay raises for government employees, and additional funding for the K-12 education system.
Arizona state senators and representatives are elected for two year terms and are limited to four consecutive terms in a chamber, though there is no limit on the total number of terms. When a lawmaker is term-limited from office, it is not uncommon for him or her to run for election in the other chamber.
Arizona's executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. The governor may serve any number of terms, though no more than two in a row. The current governor of Arizona is Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. She has been governor since 2003.
The two U.S. Senators from Arizona are Senator John McCain (Republican) and Senator Jon Kyl (Republican).
Arizona's representatives in the United States House of Representatives are Rick Renzi (R-1), Trent Franks (R-2), John Shadegg (R-3), Ed Pastor (D-4), J.D. Hayworth (R-5), Jeff Flake (R-6), Raul Grijalva (D-7), and Jim Kolbe (R-8). Jim Kolbe announced his retirement from Congress in 2006, creating one of the few open seats in the nation in Arizona's Congressional District 8. Arizona gained two seats in the House of Representatives due to redistricting based on Census 2000.
While the Republican Party has traditionally dominated Arizona politics since the 1950s, the state's changing demographics reflect political changes. Arizona narrowly voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, the first Democrat to take the state in decades. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's ten electoral votes by a margin of 11 percentage points with 54.9 percent of the vote. The state's concentration of Democrats is strongest in the city of Tucson (excluding Tucson's historically Republican-dominated suburbs) and the counties of Santa Cruz and Apache. Maricopa County, home of Phoenix and the fourth-most populous in the country, has voted Republican in every presidential election since at least 1952. On the other hand, the current mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon, is a Democrat. The current state attorney general and governor are also both Democrats. Both Governor Napolitano and Attorney General Terry Goddard are widely expected to win their upcoming elections, though both face Republican challengers.
Tucson is the state's second largest city, located 135 miles (220 km) southeast of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Tucson metropolitan area has a population rapidly nearing 1 million.
Each city named in bold has a population greater than 100,000.
Public schools in Arizona are separated into about 220 local school districts which operate independently, but are governed in most cases by elected county school superintendents; these are in turn overseen by the Arizona State Board of Education (a division of the Arizona Department of Education) and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction (elected in partisan elections every even-numbered year when there is not a presidential election, for a four-year term).
Colleges and universities
Higher education in Arizona is governed at the university level by the Arizona Board of Regents or the ABOR, a 12-member body. According to information published by the ABOR office and available on their Web site, eight volunteer members are appointed by the Governor to staggered eight-year terms; two students serve on the Board for two-year appointments, with the first year being a nonvoting apprentice year. The Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction serve as voting ex-officio members. The ABOR provides "policy guidance" and oversight to the three major degree-granting universities, as provided for by Title 15 of the Arizona Revised Statutes.
Arizona has featured a continuous string of dancing and performing groups of many ethnicities. The state is a recognized center of Native American art, with a number of galleries such as the Heard Museum showcasing historical and contemporary works. Sedona, Jerome, and Tubac are known as budding artist colonies, and small arts scenes exist in the larger cities and near the state universities.
The sparsely populated deserts of Arizona and New Mexico along the Mexican border have, in recent years, become the site of a large amount of illegal immigration into the United States. This is due in large part to greater difficulty crossing the border around more populated areas such as El Paso, Texas imparted by policy changes in recent years. Critics of such changes argue that the changes do not make a substantial difference in the number of people crossing the border into the United States illegally each year. Critics of the policy also point to a growing humanitarian crisis in the American Southwest as hundreds or thousands of illegal immigrants die each year attempting to make the crossing in increasingly remote and inhospitable locations such as the Sonoran Desert. The use of professional smugglers to ferry people across the border illegally is also increasing, see: people smuggling. Such smuggling operations are known to also often be associated with the cross-border illicit drug trade and have caused a wave of crime in Southwestern states. Proponents of the changes in policy argue that the new policy is successful in reducing the amount of illegal immigration into the United States. Accurate numbers that can effectively support either side of the argument are rare due to the illegal nature of the activity. In recent years, illegal immigration has become a major issue in both Southwestern politics and politics throughout the United States.
Arizona may be considered to be somewhat of a "hotspot" for unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings. According to the UFO Casebook, there have been 1324 reported sightings between 1946 and 2006, http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxlAZ.html the sixth most of all 50 states and Washington DC. 1324 sightings in 60 years is a little over 20 every year.
One of the most famous UFO sightings in Arizona are the infamous Phoenix Lights. These are one of the most heavily witnessed UFO sightings ever. The sightings occurred on March 13, 1997. The five lights in a "V"-shape were first spotted in Henderson, Nevada, and then moved to Paulden, on to Prescott Valley, to Dewey, and then finally to Phoenix. After the lights left Phoenix, they moved toward Tucson, following Interstate 10 at a slow pace. UFO witnesses and investigators claim these lights have never been completely explained; at the time of the occurrence, the Arizona Air National Guard issued a public statement that the 'mysterious' lights were likely flares dropped by a Maryland Air National Guard training mission which was in the area and returning to Tucson at about the time the lights were reported.
*David M. Thomas (Ed.) (2003). Arizona Legislative Manual. In [4]. Phoenix, AZ, Arizona Legislative Council. Google Print. Retrieved January 16, 2006. *Trimble, Marshall (1998). Arizona, A Cavalcade of History. Tucson, Treasure Chest Publications. (ISBN 0918080436) *Bayless, Betsy, Secretary of State (1998). Arizona Blue Book, 1997-1998. Phoenix, State of Arizona.
