Utah (U.S. State)

The Great Salt Lake is so salty that you can easily float in it without trying — it’s impossible to sink!

Utah Olympic Park near Park City lets kids ride on one of the fastest bobsled tracks in the world, reaching speeds of up to 70 miles per hour (113 kilometers per hour)!

Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, contains thousands of strange mushroom-shaped rock formations that look like a crowd of stone goblins.

The Wave in Utah is a colorful sandstone rock formation with swirling patterns that looks like a frozen ocean wave made of stone.

Hovenweep National Monument, Utah, preserves six prehistoric villages built by the Ancestral Puebloan people around 900 years ago.

The Natural History Museum of Utah houses over 1.6 million objects, including dinosaur skeletons that were found right in Utah!

Arches National Park in eastern Utah contains over 2,000 natural stone arches — the largest collection of stone arches in the world!

The Spiral Jetty in Utah is a giant artwork made of mud, salt crystals, and black rocks that spirals into the Great Salt Lake.

Utah’s Lagoon Amusement Park opened in 1886 and is one of the oldest amusement parks in the country that’s still operating today.

People & Culture

Famous inventor Philo T. Farnsworth, who developed the technology for television, grew up on a farm in Utah and created his first television design when he was just 14 years old!

The Utah Jazz NBA basketball team got its name from New Orleans (famous for jazz music) but kept the name when they moved to Utah in 1979.

Utah has the youngest population of any state, with an average age of about 32 years, because many families there have lots of children.

The Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah was created by actor Robert Redford as a place where nature, arts, and recreation could come together.

Utah celebrates Pioneer Day every July 24th with parades and fireworks to remember when the first pioneers arrived in 1847.

Famous dinosaur hunter Earl Douglass discovered thousands of dinosaur fossils in Utah, creating what is now Dinosaur National Monument.

Utah’s state folk dance is the square dance, where four couples dance together in a square formation, following a caller’s instructions.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake City has 360 volunteer singers and has performed at presidential inaugurations and Olympic Games.

Jell-O gelatin is so popular in Utah that the state eats more Jell-O per person than anywhere else in America!

Utah’s Bluff International Balloon Festival fills the sky with colorful hot air balloons that float above red rock canyons and mesas.

Fun and Unique Facts

Utah is the only place in the world where you can visit three different geographic regions in one day: mountains, desert, and canyons!

One of the largest open-pit mines in the world, Bingham Canyon Mine, is so huge it can be seen from space and is over 2.7 miles wide and 0.75 miles deep!

Utah’s Great Salt Lake is three to five times saltier than the ocean, making it a perfect habitat for brine shrimp, also known as “Sea Monkeys.”

Utah has more dark sky parks and sanctuaries than any other place in the world, making it perfect for stargazing.

Utah’s state dinosaur is the Utahraptor, which was the largest raptor dinosaur ever discovered and could grow up to 23 feet (7 meters) long — longer than a school bus — and hunted with giant claws!

Salt Lake City has the widest streets in America because they were designed to be wide enough for a team of four oxen to turn around without backing up.

The Hole N’ The Rock is a 5,000-square-foot home carved into a massive rock in Utah, where a family actually lived!

Robert Leroy Parker, better known as the famous outlaw Butch Cassidy, was born and raised in Utah before becoming a legendary Wild West figure.

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park is so famous that it appears on Utah’s license plates, and it stands 52 feet (16 meters) tall without any support!

Fantasy Canyon in Utah contains rock formations so delicate and intricate that they look like they’re from another planet.

Utah is one of the fastest growing states in America, adding about 160 new residents every day!

The Uinta Mountains in Utah run east to west instead of north to south, making them one of the few mountain ranges in North America with this unusual direction.

Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park got its name because one of its white domes of Navajo Sandstone reminded early settlers of the U.S. Capitol building.

Salt Lake City’s Family History Library is the biggest family-tree HQ in the world! It’s packed with records about over 3 billion people from the past — imagine finding your great-great-great-grandparents there!

In Utah’s Green River, there’s a watermelon farm where the melons grow especially sweet because of the perfect combination of hot days, cool nights, and mineral-rich soil.

Rainbow Bridge in Utah is so enormous that you could fit the Statue of Liberty underneath it with room to spare!

Utah Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes west of the Mississippi River and covers about 150 square miles (96,000 acres) — as big as 72,727 football fields!

Nine Mile Canyon in Utah is actually 40 miles (64 kilometers) long and contains the world’s largest collection of rock art, with over 10,000 ancient petroglyphs and pictographs!

Utah’s ski snow is so light and fluffy that people call it “The Greatest Snow on Earth,” and you need 18 inches (46 cm) of it to equal one inch of water!

The Great Salt Lake has no outlet, so when water flows in, the only way it leaves is through evaporation, which is why salt builds up and makes the lake so salty!

Utah’s Thanksgiving Point has the largest man-made waterfall in the United States, with water dropping 50 feet (15 meters) — about as tall as a five-story building!

In 1957, a B-52 airplane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb (without its nuclear core) on Utah, creating a 25-foot deep crater—luckily, it didn’t explode!

Utah’s Heber Valley Railroad is nicknamed the “Heber Creeper” because it moves so slowly that passengers used to jump off, pick flowers, and jump back on!

The first Transcontinental Telegraph was completed in Salt Lake City on October 24, 1861, allowing messages to be sent across America in minutes instead of weeks.

Utah is home to the Newspaper Rock petroglyph panel, which contains over 650 rock art designs created by Native Americans over a 2,000-year period.

Utah’s Four Corners Monument is the only place in the United States where you can stand in four states at once: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Utah’s Green River runs through Desolation Canyon, which is known for its stunning depth and rugged beauty, reaching over 5,000 feet (1.52 kilometers) in some spots!

Utah’s Capitol Building has beautiful solid marble floors, columns, staircases, and is topped with a copper dome that has turned green over time.

The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon contains life-sized prehistoric rock art figures that are 1,000-2,000 years old!

Promontory Point in Utah is where the world’s first transcontinental railroad was completed with a ceremonial golden spike in 1869.

Kanab, Utah, is called “Little Hollywood” because over 100 western movies and TV shows have been filmed there, including Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger.