Throughout the American deserts, tourists may visit the archaeological remains of desert-dwelling Native American tribes. Some of these sites are prehistoric, meaning they date back before recorded history. One example of these sites is Cliff Palace in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park. These ruins belonged to the Anasazi civilization and date back to the 13th century. Hohokam Pima Monument in Arizona is home to Snaketown, once a Native American village. As of April 2011, the Gila River Indian Community owns the land surrounding Snaketown and has forbidden public access to Hohokam Pima Monument.
The U.S. desert regions in Arizona and Utah features canyons, or large crevices in the earth. The largest canyon in the world is the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. This canyon is more than 1-mile deep and approximately 277 miles long; the Colorado River runs through the canyon. Most of the Grand Canyon is within the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. Some of Utah's canyons include American Fork Canyon and Emigration Canyon. The largest park in Utah, Canyonlands National Park, features more than 40 trails and overlooks Salt Creek and Lathrop canyons.
The American desert regions are also home to some of the country's largest cities. The largest desert city is Phoenix with a population of more than 1.4 million, according to 2010 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Other large cities include Las Vegas (known for its gaming industry), Salt Lake City (the capital of Utah), and Santa Fe, N.M. (the oldest city west of the Mississippi River, founded in 1598). Smaller cities of interest include Tombstone, Ariz., where the famed OK Corral gunfight occurred, and Palm Springs, Calif.
Natural landmarks occur in American deserts for a myriad of reasons. In the case of Arizona's Painted Desert, a large quantity of iron and manganese provide pigments to the region's mixture of mudstone, shale and siltstone, resulting in rock formations with a wide variety of colors. The Mojave Desert of eastern California features Arrowhead Pinnacles (a mountainous region in the Salinas Valley), Cougar Buttes (a series of granite rock formations approximately 30 minutes from Lucerne, Calif.), and Mitchell Caverns in the Mojave Preserve. Most of the landmarks in the Mojave are the result of shifts in the San Andreas Fault.
