Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The largest cities by metropolitan area are Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso, Albuquerque, and Tucson. Before 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas, settlement was almost non-existent outside of New Mexico's pueblos and Spanish or Mexican municipalities. Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854.
While the region's boundaries are not officially defined, there have been attempts to do so. One such definition is from the Mojave Desert in California in the west to Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the east ; another says that it extends from the Mexico–United States border in the south to the southern areas of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada in the north. In another definition, the core Southwestern U.S. includes only the states of Arizona and New Mexico; others focus on the land within the old Spanish and Mexican borders of the Nuevo México Province or the later American New Mexico Territory.
Distinct elements of the Western lifestyle thrive in the region, such as Western wear and Southwestern cuisines, including Native American, New Mexican, and Tex-Mex, or various genres of Western music like Indigenous, New Mexico, and Tejano music styles. Likewise with the sought-after Southwestern architectural styles in the region inspired by blending Pueblo and Territorial styles, with Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial architecture, Mission Revival architecture, Pueblo Deco, and Ranch-style houses in the form of the amalgamated Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival architectures. This is due to the region's caballero heritage of the Native American, Hispano, Mexican American, and frontier cowboy.
Regional geography
The geography of the region is mainly made up of four features: the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts, and the Colorado Plateau; although there are other geographical features as well, such as a portion of the Great Basin Desert. The deserts dominate the southern and western reaches of the area, while the plateau is the main feature north of the Mogollon Rim. The two major rivers of the region are the Colorado River, running in the northern and western areas, and the Rio Grande, running in the east, north to south.File:Chihuahuan Desert from South Rim BIBE.jpg|left|thumb|The Chihuahuan desert terrain mainly consists of basins broken by numerous small mountain ranges.
Formed approximately 8000 years ago, the Chihuahuan Desert is a relatively dry desert, although it is slightly wetter than the Sonoran Desert to the west. The Chihuahuan Desert spreads across the southeastern portion of the region, covering from southeastern Arizona, across southern and central New Mexico, and the portion of western Texas included in the Southwest. While it is the second largest desert in the United States, only a third of the desert is within the United States, with the rest in Mexico. El Paso and Albuquerque are the major US cities in this desert, with other smaller cities being Las Cruces and Roswell in New Mexico and Willcox in Arizona.
The elevation in the Chihuahuan Desert varies from about, as well as several larger mountain ranges within or bordering this desert including the Black Range, Organ Mountains, Capitan Mountains, Manzano Mountains, Sacramento Mountains, Sandia Mountains, Magdalena Mountains, and Chiracahua Mountains, plus many smaller mountain ranges contained in the area, namely the Animas, San Andres, Guadalupe Mountains, and Doña Ana Mountains in New Mexico; and the Franklin, Hueco, and Davis Mountains in Texas. It also reaches up into the foothills of the higher ranges such as the Black Range and Oscura Mountains in New Mexico. High above the desert, these forest-covered and sometimes snow-capped mountains form sky islands, with radically different flora and fauna than the surrounding desert below. The sky islands also supply the surrounding desert foothills with flowing water during the spring runoff and after the summer storms of the New Mexican monsoon season. The Chihuahuan is a "rain shadow" desert, formed between two mountain ranges which block oceanic precipitation from reaching the area. The Chihuahuan Desert is considered the "most biologically diverse desert in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most diverse in the world," and includes more species of cacti than any other desert in the world. The most prolific plants in this region are agave, yucca and creosote bushes, in addition to the ubiquitous presence of various cacti species.
When people think of the desert southwest, the landscape of the Sonoran Desert is what mostly comes to mind. The Sonoran Desert makes up the southwestern portion of the Southwest; most of the desert lies in Mexico, but its United States component lies on the southeastern border of California, and the western 2/3 of southern Arizona. Rainfall averages between per year. Its most widely known inhabitant is the saguaro cactus, which is unique to the Sonoran. It is bounded on the northwest by the Mojave Desert, to the north by the Colorado Plateau and to the east by the Arizona Mountains forests and the Chihuahuan Desert. Aside from the trademark saguaro, the desert has the most diverse plant life of any desert in the world, and includes many other species of cacti, including the organ-pipe, senita, prickly pear, barrel, fishhook, hedgehog, cholla, silver dollar, and jojoba. The portion of the Sonoran Desert which lies in the Southwestern United States is the most populated area within the region. Six of the top ten major population centers of the region are found within its borders: Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, and Scottsdale, all in Arizona. Also within its borders are Yuma and Prescott, Arizona.
The most northwest portion of the American Southwest is covered by the Mojave Desert. Bordered on the south by the Sonoran Desert and the east by the Colorado Plateau, its range within the region makes up the southeast tip of Nevada, the southwestern corner of Utah and the northwestern corner of Arizona. In terms of topography, the Mojave is very similar to the Great Basin Desert, which lies just to its north. Within the region, Las Vegas is the most populous city; other significant population centers include Laughlin and Pahrump in Nevada, St. George and Hurricane in Utah, and Lake Havasu City, Kingman, and Bullhead City in Arizona. The Mojave is the smallest, driest and hottest desert within the United States. The Mojave gets less than of rain annually, and its elevation ranges from above sea level. The most prolific vegetation is the tall Joshua tree, which grow as tall as, and are thought to live almost 1000 years. Other major vegetation includes the Parry saltbush and the Mojave sage, both only found in the Mojave, as well as the creosote bush.
The Colorado Plateau varies from the large stands of forests in the west, including the largest stand of ponderosa pine trees in the world, to the Mesas to the east. The Colorado Plateau consists mostly of high desert. Within the Southwest U.S. region, the Colorado is bordered to the south by the Mogollon Rim and the Sonoran Desert, to the west by the Mojave Desert, and to the east by the Rocky Mountains, the Rio Grande Rift valley, and the Llano Estacado. The Plateau is characterized by a series of plateaus and mesas, interspersed with canyons. The most dramatic example is the Grand Canyon. But that is one of many dramatic vistas included within the Plateau, which includes spectacular lava formations, "painted" deserts, sand dunes, and badlands. One of the most distinctive features of the Plateau is its longevity, having come into existence at least 500 million years ago. The Plateau can be divided into six sections, three of which fall into the Southwest region. Beginning with the Navajo section forming the northern boundary of the Southwestern United States, which has shallower canyons than those in the Canyonlands section just to its north; the Navajo section is bordered to the south by the Grand Canyon section, which of course is dominated by the Grand Canyon; and the southeasternmost portion of the Plateau is the Datil section, consisting of valleys, mesas, and volcanic formations. Albuquerque is the most populous city often considered at the edge of this portion contained in the Southwest region, but Santa Fe, New Mexico and Flagstaff, Arizona, are also significant population centers.
Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas dominate the westernmost metropolitan areas in the Southwest, while Albuquerque-Santa Fe and El Paso-Las Cruces dominate the easternmost metropolitan areas.
History
Pre-European contact
Human history in the Southwest begins with the arrival of the Clovis culture, a Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer culture which arrived sometime around 9000 BC. This culture remained in the area for several millennia. At some point they were replaced by three great Pre-Columbian Indian cultures: the Ancestral Pueblo people, the Hohokam, and the Mogollon, all of which existed among other surrounding cultures including the Patayan. Maize was first cultivated in the region sometime during the early first millennium BC, but it took several hundred years for the native cultures to become dependent on it as a food source. As their dependence on maize grew, Pre-Columbian Indians began developing irrigation systems around 600 CE.Archaeological evidence suggests the Ancestral Pueblo people, sometimes referred to as the Anasazi, began settling the area in approximately 1500 BC. However, the term "Anasazi" is viewed by modern Pueblo people as derogatory and is increasingly disused. Eventually, the Ancestral Pueblo would spread throughout the entire northern section of the Southwest. This culture would go through several different eras lasting from approximately 1500 BC through the middle of the 15th century AD: the Basketmaker I, II, and III phases followed by the Pueblo I, II, III, and IV. As the Puebloans transitioned from a nomadic lifestyle to one based on both dry land and irrigated agriculture, their first domiciles were pithouses. The Mogollon culture developed later than the Puebloan, arising in the east at around 300 BC. Their range would eventually extend deep into what would become Mexico, and dominate the southeastern portion of the Southwest. Their settlements would evolve over time from pit-dwellings through pueblos and ultimately incorporate cliff-dwellings. The Hohokam were the last of these ancestral cultures to develop, somewhere around AD 1, but became the most populous of the three by AD 1300, despite occupying the smallest territory of the three, covering most of the southwest portion. Beginning in approximately AD 600, the Hohokam began to develop an extensive series of irrigation canals; of the three major cultures in the Southwest, only the Ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco culture and the Hohokam developed irrigation as a means of watering their agriculture.
Not long after the Hohokam reached the height of their culture, all three major cultures in the Southwest began to decline for unknown reasons, although severe drought and encroachment from other peoples have been postulated. By the end of the 15th century, all three cultures had disappeared. The modern Puebloan tribes of the Isleta, Sandia, Cochiti, Kewa, Santa Ana, Taos, Jemez, Acoma, Laguna, and Zia, as well as the Hopi and Zuni peoples, trace their ancestry back to the Ancestral Puebloans, while the Akimel O'odham and Tohono O'odham claim descent from Hohokam. The area previously occupied by the Mogollon was taken over by an unrelated tribe, the Apache. While it is unclear whether any of the modern Indian tribes are descended from the Mogollon, some archeologists and historians believe that they mixed with Ancestral Puebloans and became part of the modern Hopi and Zuni tribes.
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Southwestern United States was inhabited by a very large population of American Indian tribes. The area once occupied by the ancestral Puebloans became inhabited by several American Indian tribes, the most populous of which were the Navajo, Ute, Southern Paiute, and Hopi. The Navajo, along with the Hopi, were the earliest of the modern Indian tribes to develop in the Southwest. Around AD 1100 their culture began to develop in the Four Corners area of the region. The Navajos migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, where the majority of Athabaskan speakers reside. The Ute were found over most of modern-day Utah and Colorado, as well as northern New Mexico and Arizona. The Paiutes roamed an area which covered over 45,000 square miles of southern Nevada and California, south-central Utah, and northern Arizona. The Hopi settled the lands of the central and western portions of northern Arizona. Their village of Oraibi, settled in approximately AD 1100, is, along with Acoma Sky City in New Mexico, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the United States. The Mogollon area became occupied by the Apaches and the Zuni. The Apache migrated into the American Southwest from the northern areas of North America at some point between 1200 and 1500. They settled throughout New Mexico, eastern Arizona, northern Mexico, parts of western Texas, and southern Colorado. The Zuni count their direct ancestry through the ancestral Puebloans. The modern-day Zuni established a culture along the Zuni River in far-eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Both major tribes of the O'odham tribe settled in the southern and central Arizona, in the lands once controlled by their ancestors, the Hohokam.