User:Featuresaltlakecity/Salt Lake City
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{{Salt Lake City infobox}}
Salt Lake City, Utah | |
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Nickname: Crossroads of the West | |
Coordinates: 40°45′0″N 111°53′0″W | |
County | Salt Lake |
Government | |
• Mayor | Rocky Anderson |
Area | |
• City | 285.9 km2 (110.4 sq mi) |
• Land | 282.5 km2 (109.1 sq mi) |
• Water | 3.3 km2 (1.3 sq mi) |
Elevation | 1,288 m (4,226 ft) |
Population (2000) | |
• City | 181,743 |
• Density | 643.3/km2 (1,666/sq mi) |
• Metro | 1,005,232 |
Time zone | UTC-7 (Mountain) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-6 (Mountain) |
Website | http://www.slcgov.com |
There is also a part of the Honolulu, Hawaii metropolitan area known as 'Salt Lake.'
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the seat of Salt Lake County and has the third largest metropolitan population in the interior western U.S. The city's name is often shortened to Salt Lake or referred to by its initials, S.L.C.
The city is located in the small semi-arid Salt Lake Valley surrounded by the Great Salt Lake, and the steep Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges. These mountains contain densely vegetated canyons fed by the largest snowfall amounts in the U.S. outside of the Cascades; Emigration, Millcreek, and Parley's canyons are adjacent to Salt Lake.
Originally named Great Salt Lake City, it was founded in 1847 by a group of Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young who fled hostility in the Midwest. Salt Lake City is the oldest city in the region and is the world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the L.D.S. or Mormon Church).
Mining booms and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad initially brought economic growth, and the city became nicknamed the Crossroads of the West. In the 21st century the city has developed a strong outdoor recreation industry, became the industrial banking center of the U.S.[1], and served as host to the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Salt Lake City has a population of 178,097[2]. The Salt Lake City metropolitan area that spans Salt Lake, Summit and Tooele counties, has a total estimated population of 1,034,484. Salt Lake City is further situated in a larger urban area with some additional metropolitan areas that were considered part of its own as recently as 2003, this is known as the Wasatch Front, and numbers 2,150,017.