As early as 700 A.D., the Hohokam lived on the land that would become the Phoenix. Hohokam created about 135 miles (217 km) of irrigation canals. This allows them to cultivate things on the ground. It is believed that between 1300 and 1450 AD, droughts and floods caused the Hohokam to stop living in the area.
Spanish and Mexican explorers knew the area, but they didn't reach as far north as the Salado River Valley. In 1867, Jack Swilling from Wickenburg, Arizona, arrived in the area. He saw that the land was good for agriculture. The only problems he saw were lack of rain and good watering.
Swilling fixed the problem with building a channel series. A small community was created about four miles (6 km) east of where the city is today. The farming community was called Swilly's Mill. The name was later changed to Helling Mill, Mill City and East Phoenix.
Swilling was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. I wanted to name the city Stonewall, after Gen. Other people had other ideas for names. Finally, Lord Darrell Duppa suggested the name Phoenix.
The name is the same as the mythological firebird, which is reborn from its own ash after its death. It was a good name for a city born of an ancient civilization. Phoenix is located at 33°26'54 North, 112°4'26 West (33.448457°, -112.073844°) in the Salt River Valley, or Valley of the Sun, in central Arizona. It is located at an average elevation of 1,117 feet (340 m), in the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert.
In addition to the mountains in and around the city, Phoenix's topography is mostly flat. This allows the city's main streets to run in a precise grid with wide and spaced roads. The Salt River runs west through the city of Phoenix. The riverbed is usually dry or just a trickle due to the heavy use of irrigation.
River is full after infrequent rain storms or when more water is released from upstream dams. The City of Tempe has built two inflatable dams in the Salt River bed to create a year-round recreational lake, called Lake Tempe Town. Dams deflate to allow river to flow unhindered during releases. Lake Pleasant Regional Park is located in northwest Phoenix, in the suburb of Peoria, Arizona.
As in most parts of Arizona, Phoenix does not observe daylight saving time. Jack Williams argued before Congress that energy use would increase at night. Refrigeration units were not used as often in the morning at standard time. He went so far as to say that energy use would increase because there would be more lights on in the early morning.
He was also worried that children would go to school in the dark, which in fact they were. Navajo Nation lands in northeastern Arizona observe daylight saving time along with the rest of their tribal lands in other states. Phoenix has an arid climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. The average summer high temperature is among the hottest of any populated area in the United States and is close to those of cities such as Riyadh and Baghdad.
Temperature reaches or exceeds 100° F (38° C) on an average of 110 days throughout the year, including most days from late May to early September, and highs exceed 110° F (43° C) an average of 21 days during the year. On June 26, 1990, the temperature reached an all-time high of 122 °F (50 °C). Since 1986, the city of Phoenix has been divided into urban villages, many of which are based on neighborhoods and communities of historic importance. Each town has a planning committee.
This committee is appointed directly by the city council. According to the village planning manual published by the city, the purpose of village planning committees is to work with the city planning commission to ensure a balance between housing and employment in each village. The committees also focus on developing identified village nuclei and promoting the unique character and identity of villages. Phoenix's best-known regions and districts include Downtown, Midtown, West Phoenix, North Phoenix, South Phoenix, Biltmore Area, Arcadia, Sunnyslope, Ahwatukee.
By the 1970s, there was an increase in crime and a decline in business in the city center. The city's crime rates in many categories have improved since then, but they are still higher than state and national averages. The crime rate in Phoenix has dropped over the years. However, the recent kidnappings and human trafficking due to drug trafficking in Mexico have drawn negative attention to the city.
Our editors will review what you submitted and determine if they should review the article. With its wide tree-lined avenues, Spanish-style architecture, and surrounding mountains, Phoenix looks a lot like Los Angeles. Like its California counterpart, Phoenix is a metropolis with not one but many centers, all at considerable distances from each other. From its historic heart to the west of Sky Harbor International Airport, the large metropolitan area of which Phoenix is only a small part, has grown to encompass a vast expanse of land that extends almost from the Gila River, south, to the high plateaus and volcanic mountains of the north and east and into the wide valley desert to the west.
Growth is a constant in Phoenix's life, with thousands of new residents and millions of visitors arriving there every year. Phoenix is located near the confluence of the Gila and Salt rivers and is located at the northern end of the Sonoran Desert, an arid ecological zone whose characteristic plant is the nationally protected saguaro cactus. East of Phoenix are the rugged Superstition Mountains, a large volcanic caldera complex that formed about 305 million years ago; the mountains reach about 900 meters at their highest point. The Mazatzal Mountains rise to the northeast; the Verde River flows west of the mountains, entering the Salado River east of Phoenix.
The wide valley in which the city is located extends west to the Colorado River and south to the mountain ranges north of Tucson, although Phoenix's geographical boundaries are a long way from those natural barriers. The Phoenix metropolitan area, the Valley of the Sun, is located at an altitude of 1,100 feet (335 meters) above sea level. The north and east ends of this valley rise to the surrounding volcanic peaks; the rest is flat terrain, dotted with small volcanic mountains of granite and shale. Camelback Mountain, Squaw Peak and South Mountain are the most prominent of these urban peaks, reaching elevations of approximately 2,600 to 2,700 feet (790 to 820 meters).
Desert soil is alkaline, and water from local rivers and wells is saline and contains other minerals. Many irrigated areas in the Phoenix area are embedded with dry mineral deposits, which build up and reduce soil productivity. The water is strangely abundant, given that the city is in one of the driest regions of the continent; the valley covers an underground sedimentary basin that can contain large amounts of groundwater. However, these reserves have been substantially depleted and Phoenix has become increasingly dependent on Colorado River water through the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a 336-mile (541 km) long artificial waterway that extends from Lake Havasu on the California border to Tucson.
In addition, water from underground reservoirs is channeled into the valley from peripheral areas. In the past, virtually all of the region's water was used for agricultural purposes, although an increasing proportion is now being used for municipal use. Phoenix has a dry and warm climate that in the winter months attracts tens of thousands of visitors. The average daily high temperature in winter is close to 70°F (21°C), but summer highs tend to rise to more than 100°F (38°C).
It's almost always sunny all year round. Rainfall averages less than 8 inches (200 mm) per year, divided almost evenly between the winter and summer months. In summer, the so-called monsoon season, much of this precipitation returns to the atmosphere almost immediately through evaporation or transpiration. None of the mountains surrounding Phoenix north and east reach an elevation high enough to attract a lot of moisture.
The city depends almost entirely on groundwater flowing from the Salt and Gila rivers, as well as supplementary water brought by aqueducts through the CAP. Until relatively recently, about three-fifths of the land within the city limits of Phoenix was undeveloped. In the mid-1970s, a plan was proposed to develop these wastelands through a “landfill construction” program, taking advantage of infrastructure that was already in place. However, the city pursued a policy of annexing surrounding communities, expanding outward to accommodate its growing population.
At the end of the decade, Phoenix adopted the Phoenix Concept 2000 plan, which divided the city into urban villages, each with its own village core, where greater height and density were allowed, further shaping the culture of free market development. The story of Phoenix begins with Jack Swilling, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War who searched the nearby mining town of Wickenburg, in the newly formed Arizona territory. In 1965, the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum opened on the Arizona State Fairgrounds, west of downtown. With the creation of the Phoenix Sister Cities (PSC) organization in 1972, Phoenix became a member of the international sister cities movement.
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 first newspaper in Phoenix was the weekly Salt River Valley Herald, established in 1878, which would change its name the following year to the Phoenix Herald. The Arizona Upland subdivision of the Sonoran Desert (of which Phoenix is part) has the most structurally diverse flora in the United States. The Territorial Legislature passed the Phoenix Charter Bill, incorporating Phoenix and providing mayor-council government; Governor John C.
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