The city's size is 109 square miles and has a population of 181,743 people (2000), making it the 110th largest city in the country. The metro area is much larger at 968,858 people, making it the 50th largest metro area in the country. Salt Lake City is serviced by 1 major airport, Salt Lake International Airport. It is just west of the downtown area. Salt Lake city has 3 major interstate highways junction in it. They are I-15, 80 and 84. The elevation in the city lies 4,330 feet above sea level. Salt Lake City has been at the forefront of education in Utah since 1850, when the University of Deseret was founded. Renamed the University of Utah, it now ranks as Utah’s largest institution of higher education. Westminster College was founded in 1875 as a mission school of the Presbyterian Church until 1974, when it became a secular institution. Museums include include the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the Utah Museum of Natural History. Important Mormon institutions include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Museum of Church History and Art and the adjacent Family History Library, which is world famous and leading as a center for genealogical research. Other popular destinations in the city the Utah State Historical Society, located in the historic Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Station. Salt Lake City is home to a number of performing arts groups, including the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Around the city, the Wasatch Range provides excellent opportunities for hiking, downhill and cross-country skiing. Seven major ski areas—Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, Brighton, Park City, Deer Valley, and The Canyons—are less than an hour’s drive from downtown. This area hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics.

It is the largest and most important city in a large portion of the interior West and serves as the industrial, financial, religious, and commercial center of Utah. Downtown Salt Lake City is noted for its broad streets and spacious blocks, a legacy of the Mormon settlers who laid out the city in 1847. The city was built on a grid system based on the four streets bordering Temple Square, the focus of the downtown area.

Native Americans lived in the Great Salt Lake Valley for thousands of years before white settlement. The Shoshone, Ute, and Paiute peoples were among those Native Americans living in the area when the Mormons entered the area in July 1847. Since the founding of their church in New York in 1830, the Mormons had been moving west because of persecution. Finally they moved to the Far West to find an isolated land. Upon arrival in the Great Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young declared, “This is the right place.” Young laid out the community in 4-hectare (10-acre) plots around Temple Square, which became the center of the Mormon faith. The population soared with a steady influx of Mormon converts. Salt Lake City incorporated in 1851 and was designated the capital when Utah became a state in 1896. The city’s economy was strengthened with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and a railroad connection from Salt Lake City to the transcontinental railroad in 1870. Mining increased with the arrival of the railroad, and the city’s population more than doubled in the 1880s. Increased demand for metals during World War II (1939-1945) created a new mining boom, and a period of industrial expansion followed the war. In the mid-20th century the population of the city remained stable while the metropolitan population soared. The completion of several downtown projects since the 1970s has helped to maintain a viable city center. In 2002 Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympic Games.

Salt Lake City has a diversified economy. The mining of materials, including copper, silver, lead, zinc, coal, and iron ore, is important to the city’s industrial base. Church, government, finance, education, research, high-technology industries, transportation, recreation, and tourism account for most of the city’s employment. Public support for an efficient transportation system increased in 1995 after the city was designated to host the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. As a result, in 1999 the Utah Transit Authority completed a 24-km (15-mi) light-rail transit line, known as TRAX, that runs from downtown Salt Lake City south through the center of Salt Lake Valley.

The city receives on average 15.8"/year of rain. The summer averages temperatures of 77F in July and 28F in January.

All pictures are from Salt Lake City taken in early November, using various film and digital cameras.

From Temple Square, the Mormon Temple located at Rt 89 and S. Main.
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From Temple Square, the Mormon Temple.
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From Temple Square, the Mormon Temple.
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From Temple Square, the Mormon Temple.
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The Temple Square grounds.
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The Utah State Capitol, located at Capitol and E 300St N.
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Further information on Salt Lake City can be found at the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau page
or the Lonely Planet Salt Lake City page.