About 130,000 sq mi · UT, CO, AZ, NM · 5,000–11,000 ft · 8 national parks
Colorado Plateau map
The Colorado Plateau is the high desert of layered red rock around the Four Corners, covering about 130,000 square miles of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. The Colorado River and its tributaries have cut the Grand Canyon and the canyons of Utah into it.
Where the plateau is
The Colorado Plateau is centred on the Four Corners. It takes in the southeastern half of Utah, the western edge of Colorado, the northern third of Arizona and the northwestern corner of New Mexico. To the west and south it is bounded by the faulted Basin and Range country; to the east and north by the Rockies. Most of the surface lies between 5,000 and 7,000 ft; isolated volcanic peaks such as the San Francisco Peaks above Flagstaff (Humphreys Peak, 12,633 ft, the Arizona high point) and the La Sal Mountains near Moab rise higher.
Key measurements
- Area: about 130,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Mexico.
- Elevation: mainly 5,000–7,000 ft, with the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon above 8,000 ft and peaks to about 12,700 ft.
- The Grand Canyon is cut a mile deep into the plateau's southwestern edge.
- Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam, floods about 180 miles of the Colorado's canyon across the Utah–Arizona line.
- The Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the US at about 27,000 square miles, covers much of the Arizona and New Mexico portion, along with Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute lands.
National parks on the plateau
- Arizona — Grand Canyon (1919) and Petrified Forest (1962).
- Utah — Zion (1919), Bryce Canyon (1928), Capitol Reef (1971), Arches (1971) and Canyonlands (1964).
- Colorado — Mesa Verde (1906), with its cliff dwellings; Black Canyon of the Gunnison sits on the plateau's eastern margin.
Add Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Natural Bridges, Rainbow Bridge, Hovenweep, Chaco Culture and Glen Canyon and the plateau has the densest cluster of protected land in the country. See the national parks map for the full list of 63.
Rivers
The Colorado enters from the Rockies at Grand Junction, meets the Green River (from Wyoming) in Canyonlands, receives the San Juan (from the New Mexico Rockies) in Lake Powell, and leaves through the Grand Canyon. The Little Colorado drains the Painted Desert and joins inside the canyon. Because the rock is bare and the climate dry, almost all the plateau's water is in these few rivers, which is why Lake Powell and Lake Mead matter so much to the Southwest.
Cities and towns
Flagstaff, Arizona, at 7,000 ft, is the largest city on the plateau proper. Grand Junction, Colorado; St. George, Moab, Price and Vernal, Utah; Farmington and Gallup, New Mexico; and Page, Kingman and Winslow, Arizona, are the others. Phoenix, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas all lie just off its edges. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, but the Navajo Nation inside Arizona does, so clocks on the plateau change at reservation lines in summer.
How the plateau shaped the map
The plateau is where surveyors, not rivers, drew the borders. The 37th parallel (Utah–Arizona and Colorado–New Mexico) and the 109th meridian (Utah–Colorado and Arizona–New Mexico) cross at Four Corners, the only place in the country where four states meet. The absence of towns is the point: the Spanish, Mexican and American frontiers all passed the plateau by, and it remains the emptiest part of the lower 48 outside Nevada.
Related maps
- Grand Canyon · Four Corners · Colorado River.
- US deserts — the plateau's Painted Desert and the neighbouring Great Basin.
- Southwest states · All geography maps.