Utah

Utah entered the Union as the forty-fifth state on January 4, 1896. A western state in the Rocky Mountain region, it is bordered by Idaho , Wyoming , Colorado , Arizona , and Nevada . The state capital is Salt Lake City.

Utah was originally inhabited by Native American tribes, including the Ute, Goshute, Shoshone, and Southern Paiute; the Navajo migrated to the area from Canada. Spanish missionaries traveled from Mexico to the area in the 1770s. By the early 1800s, trade between Santa Fe, New Mexico , and the Utah Native Americans was established.

The first white settlements were not established until 1847, when the Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , arrived in Utah, then under Mexican control. In 1848, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquired Utah from Mexico. Whites engaged in wars with Native Americans from 1853 to 1854 and again from 1865 to 1868. To put an end to the conflicts, most Native Americans were removed to reservations.

Nearly 98 percent of Utah's population was Mormon until 1870, and the Mormon way of life dominated Utah culture, politics, and economy. Non-Mormons flocked to Utah in 1863 with the discovery of silver-bearing ore. Newcomers were wary of the Mormons. They found no free public schools and were dismayed by the mingling of church and state, as well as by the Mormon practice of polygamy (marrying multiple wives). The Mormon Church renounced polygamy in 1890.

Utah's total population in 2006 was more than 2.5 million, with approximately 89 percent white, another 11 percent Hispanic. Thirty percent were under the age of eighteen, another 30 percent between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four. Church-going Mormons accounted for 41.6 percent of the entire population of Utah in 2006.

Statistics from 2006 show that the majority (19.5 percent) of Utah's labor force worked in trade, transportation, and public utilities; 17.3 percent worked for the government. The economy depends on the federal government for a stable economy, as more than 70 percent of Utah lands are under U.S. control. Livestock and resulting products account for over three-fourths of the state's agricultural income.

A state rich in natural beauty, Utah boasts forty-one state parks, five national parks, and eight national monuments. The Great Salt Lake, in northern Utah, is the largest inland body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere.