page_title: Phoenix, Arizona
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Phoenix, Arizona / Geography
context_page_description: Phoenix is the capital and most populous city in Arizona, with 1,680,992 people. It is also the fifth most populous city in the United States along with being the largest state capital by population, and the only state capital with a population of more than one million residents.
  Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, which in turn is part of the Salt River Valley. The metropolitan area is the 11th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.73 million people as of 2017. Phoenix is the seat of Maricopa County and the largest city in the state at 517.9 square miles, more than twice the size of Tucson and one of the largest cities in the United States.
  Phoenix was settled in 1867 as an agricultural community near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers and was incorporated as a city in 1881. It became the capital of Arizona Territory in 1889. It is in the northeastern reaches of the Sonoran Desert and has a hot desert climate.
context_section_description: Phoenix is in the southwestern United States, in the south-central portion of Arizona; about halfway between Tucson to the southeast and Flagstaff to the north. By car, the city is approximately 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of the US-Mexico border at Sonoyta and 180 mi (290 km) north of the border at Nogales. The metropolitan area is known as the "Valley of the Sun" due to its location in the Salt River Valley. It lies at a mean elevation of 1,086 feet (331 m), in the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert.
  Other than the mountains in and around the city, Phoenix's topography is generally flat, which allows the city's main streets to run on a precise grid with wide, open-spaced roadways. Scattered, low mountain ranges surround the valley: McDowell Mountains to the northeast, the White Tank Mountains to the west, the Superstition Mountains far to the east, and both South Mountain and the Sierra Estrella to the south/southwest. Camelback Mountain, North Mountain, Sunnyslope Mountain, and Piestewa Peak are within the heart of the valley. The city's outskirts have large fields of irrigated cropland and Native American reservation lands. The Salt River runs westward through Phoenix, but the riverbed is often dry or contains little water due to large irrigation diversions. South Mountain separates the community of Ahwatukee from the rest of the city.
  According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 517.9 square miles (1,341 km²). 516.7 square miles (1,338 km²) of it is land, and 1.2 square miles (3.1 km², or 0.2%) of it is water.
  Maricopa County grew by 811% from 186,000 in 1940 to 1,509,000 by 1980, thanks in part to air conditioning, cheap housing, and an influx of retirees. The once "modest urban sprawl" now "grew by 'epic' proportions— not only a myriad of residential tract developments on both farmland and desert." Retail outlets and office complexes spread out and did not concentrate in the small downtown area. There was low population density and a lack of widespread and significant high-rise development. As a consequence Phoenix became a textbook case of urban sprawl for geographers. Even though it is the fifth most populated city, the large area gives it a low density rate of approximately 2,797 people per square mile. In comparison, Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city, has a density of over 11,000.
  Like most of Arizona, Phoenix does not observe daylight saving time. In 1973, Governor Jack Williams argued to the U.S. Congress that energy use would increase in the evening should Arizona observe DST. He went on to say energy use would also rise early in the day "because there would be more lights on in the early morning." Additionally, he said daylight saving time would cause children to go to school in the dark.
caption: Landsat 7 satellite image of the Phoenix metro area in 2002
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