Phoenix

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• Chengdu
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History

The Hohokam people occupied the Phoenix area for 2,000 years. They created roughly of irrigation canals, making the desert land arable, and paths of these canals were used for the Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project Canal, and the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct. They also carried out extensive trade with the nearby Ancestral Puebloans, Mogollon, and Sinagua, as well as with the more distant Mesoamerican civilizations. It is believed periods of drought and severe floods between 1300 and 1450 led to the Hohokam civilization's abandonment of the area. After the departure of the Hohokam, groups of Akimel O'odham (commonly known as Pima), Tohono O'odham, and Maricopa tribes began to use the area, as well as segments of the Yavapai and Apache. The O'odham were offshoots of the Sobaipuri tribe, who in turn were thought to be the descendants of the Hohokam. The Akimel O'odham were the major group in the area. They lived in small villages with well-defined irrigation systems that spread over the Gila River Valley, from Florence in the east to the Estrellas in the west. Their crops included corn, beans, and squash for food as well as cotton and tobacco. They banded with the Maricopa for protection against incursions by the Yuma and Apache tribes. The Maricopa are part of the larger Yuma people; however, they migrated east from the lower Colorado and Gila Rivers in the early 1800s, when they began to be enemies with other Yuma tribes, settling among the existing communities of the Akimel O'odham. The Tohono O'odham also lived in the region, but largely to the south and all the way to the Mexican border. The O'odham lived in small settlements as seasonal farmers who took advantage of the rains, rather than the large-scale irrigation of the Akimel. They grew crops such as sweet…

Geography

Phoenix is in the south-central portion of Arizona; about halfway between Tucson to the southeast and Flagstaff to the north, in the Southwestern United States. By car, Phoenix is approximately north of the US–Mexico border at Sonoyta and north of the border at Nogales. The metropolitan area is known as the "Valley of the Sun" due to its location in the Salt River Valley. Other than the mountains in and around the city, Phoenix's topography is generally flat, which allows the city's main streets to run on a precise grid with wide, open-spaced roadways. Scattered, low mountain ranges surround the valley: McDowell Mountains to the northeast, the White Tank Mountains to the west, the Superstition Mountains far to the east, and both South Mountain and the Sierra Estrella to the south/southwest. Camelback Mountain, North Mountain, Sunnyslope Mountain, and Piestewa Peak are within the heart of the valley. The city's outskirts have large fields of irrigated cropland and Native American reservation lands. The Salt River runs westward through Phoenix, but the riverbed is often dry or contains little water due to large irrigation diversions. South Mountain separates the community of Ahwatukee from the rest of the city. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and , or 0.2%, is water. Maricopa County grew by 711% from 186,000 in 1940 to 1,509,000 by 1980, due in part to air conditioning, cheap housing, and an influx of retirees. The once "modest urban sprawl" now "grew by 'epic' proportions—not only a myriad of residential tract developments on both farmland and desert". Retail outlets and office complexes spread out and did not concentrate in the small downtown area. There was low population density and a lack of widespread…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  39,946
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  36,879
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  33,495
• Gila Woodpecker

  Melanerpes uropygialis (S.F.Baird, 1854) · Aves
  33,183
• Northern Mockingbird

  Mimus polyglottos (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  32,323
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  32,261
• Curve-billed Thrasher

  Toxostoma curvirostre (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  31,919
• Verdin

  Auriparus flaviceps (Sundevall, 1850) · Aves
  31,588

Largest nearby schools

• Arizona Virtual Academy
  Other · PHOENIX · 5,122 students
• Trevor Browne High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,921 students · 20:1 ratio
• Maryvale High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,795 students · 20.3:1 ratio
• Pinnacle High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,479 students · 23.6:1 ratio
• Alhambra High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,282 students · 18.3:1 ratio
• Sunnyslope High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,281 students · 24.3:1 ratio
• Camelback High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,238 students · 18.5:1 ratio
• Carl Hayden High School
  High · PHOENIX · 2,217 students · 19.3:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.6 — 2022-02-25
  1 km S of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.5 — 2022-02-15
  6 km S of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.5 — 2022-02-12
  2 km ESE of Roosevelt, Arizona
• M 2.6 — 2020-06-06
  5 km NW of New River, Arizona
• M 3.2 — 2016-12-10
  11 km ENE of Rio Verde, Arizona
• M 3.6 — 2015-11-02
  4 km NNE of Black Canyon City, Arizona