Regions
The American West, organized by place — each region gathers the parks, towns, drives, and roadside stops that define one corner of the map.
Each colored area marks where a region sits — tap one to explore it.
Albuquerque & the Middle Rio Grande
The Tiguex pueblos Coronado wintered among, Route 66 down Central Avenue, the Salinas missions left in the 1670s, sandhill cranes, and the Trinity Site.
Big Bear & the Rim of the World
Yuhaaviatam country above the Citrus Belt — the Rim of the World crest from Crestline through Lake Arrowhead to Big Bear, two dams built for oranges on the valley floor, Holcomb Valley's 1860 gold, and San Gorgonio at 11,503 feet.
Billings & the Little Bighorn
Crow and Northern Cheyenne country: the long walk home of 1878, the Greasy Grass and the 2003 Indian Memorial, and Clark's re-cut signature on Pompeys Pillar.
Boise, the Treasure Valley & the Owyhees
Newe homeland the capital was built on — Boise's Old Pen and Basque Block, the Owyhee canyonlands and Silver City, the raptor cliffs of the Snake, and the Oregon Trail's Three Island Crossing.
Bryce Canyon Country
The high-plateau heart of Scenic Byway 12 — Bryce Canyon's hoodoos, the Grand Staircase–Escalante, and the string of towns and parks along one of America's great drives.
Butte, Helena & the Gold Country
Nimiipuu loss at the Big Hole, the gold strikes at Bannack, Alder Gulch and Last Chance Gulch, the vigilantes, and Butte's flooded Berkeley Pit beneath the Anaconda stack.
Cache Valley & Bear Lake
Utah's green northern corner — the dairy-and-college town of Logan, the Logan Canyon scenic byway, and the turquoise water of Bear Lake.
Capitol Reef Country
Utah's quietest red-rock park and the country around it — Capitol Reef, the Waterpocket Fold, the orchards of Fruita, and the desert towns of Highway 24.
Casper & the Oregon Trail
Fort Laramie and the cow that started a generation of war, the ruts worn into Guernsey's sandstone, the Great Register of the Desert, and the lieutenant Casper misspells.
Castle Country & the San Rafael Swell
The empty heart of east-central Utah — the San Rafael Swell, the richest dinosaur quarry on earth, the rock art of Nine Mile Canyon, and the coal town of Price.
Cedar Breaks & Brian Head
The high, cool plateau above Cedar City — Cedar Breaks' wildflower amphitheater, the ski town of Brian Head, and the ancient rock art at Parowan Gap.
Central Oregon
Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute country east of the Cascades — the Deschutes, Bend and Newberry Volcano, Smith Rock, the Painted Hills, and Kam Wah Chung in John Day.
Central Utah
The heartland between the Wasatch Front and the red-rock south — pioneer towns along I-15, Cove Fort, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Fish Lake, and the Manti Temple.
Chaco & the Four Corners
Chaco Canyon's great houses, Tsé Bitʼaʼí rising off the Diné plateau, Haak'u on its mesa, and the rock where Oñate carved his name in 1605.
Cheyenne, Laramie & the Snowy Range
The Union Pacific's summit and the Ames pyramid, Laramie's first women jurors and first woman voter, and the territorial prison that held Butch Cassidy.
Clearwater Country & Hells Canyon
The Nimiipuu homeland — Weippe Prairie where the Nez Perce fed Lewis and Clark, Lewiston, White Bird battlefield, the Clearwater road to Lolo Pass, and Hells Canyon, the deepest river gorge in North America.
Cody & the Bighorn Basin
The Medicine Wheel on Medicine Mountain, the hot springs Washakie sold on condition they stay free, Buffalo Bill's town and dam, and Heart Mountain's draft resisters.
Coulee Country
Sinkiuse country in the Columbia's big bend — the Channeled Scablands and the geologist who read them, Dry Falls, Grand Coulee Dam and the songs Woody Guthrie wrote for it.
Cowboy Country
Nevada's northeast — the Humboldt River corridor along I-80, the buckaroo town of Elko and the Ruby Mountains, and the invisible-gold country of the Carlin Trend, all on land the Western Shoshone never ceded.
Crater Lake & the Klamath Basin
Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin country — Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the country, Upper Klamath Lake and the c'waam, the Klamath Tribes at Chiloquin, and the Modoc graves at Fort Klamath.
Craters of the Moon & the Upper Snake
The Snake River Plain's newest ground — the lava fields of Craters of the Moon, the atomic desert at Arco and EBR-I, the Teton Dam flood, Teton Valley, and Mesa Falls on the Henrys Fork.
Death Valley & the Basin Ranges
The Timbisha homeland the maps call Death Valley — the lowest ground in North America, the Panamint wall above it, Trona's tufa spires, and an opera house in the middle of the Amargosa desert.
Denver & the Front Range
The Arapaho winter camp at the Platte, Gregory's 1859 lode, Left Hand and the governor's proclamation that led to Sand Creek, and the Georgetown Loop.
Devils Tower & the Black Hills
Bear Lodge, renamed by a mistranslation and made the first national monument, the June climbing closure, Inyan Kara's summit, and the jail that named the Sundance Kid.
Dinosaurland & Flaming Gorge
Utah's far-northeast corner — the dinosaur fossil beds around Vernal and the red-rock canyon country of Flaming Gorge, deep in the Uinta Basin.
Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley
Payahuunadü, the land of flowing water — US-395 under the Sierra escarpment, the Alabama Hills, Manzanar's hard history, Bishop, Mono Lake's tufa towers, and the ghost town of Bodie kept in arrested decay.
Glacier & the Flathead
Séliš, Ksanka and Ql̓ispé country: the Flathead Reservation and the Bison Range returned in 2022, Flathead Lake, and Going-to-the-Sun Road over Glacier's Logan Pass.
Gold Country & the Northern Passes
Highway 49 through the Mother Lode — Coloma, where the Gold Rush began, the living main streets it left behind, Sacramento at the head of US-50, and the emigrant passes at Donner and Tahoe.
Golden Gate & the Marin Coast
Coast Miwok country from the Golden Gate north — Highway 1 over Mount Tamalpais to Muir Beach and Stinson, then up the San Andreas rift through Olema and along Tomales Bay, with Muir Woods and Point Reyes saved by people who refused to sell.
Greater Zion
Utah's red-rock southwest corner — Zion National Park and the canyons, ghost towns, and desert parks of Washington County around it.
Green River Country & the Red Desert
Bridger and Vasquez's trading post and the fort the Mormons burned, the Rock Springs massacre of 1885, and the pronghorn's six-thousand-year road to the Tetons.
Jackson Hole & the Tetons
Summer country for five nations, the 1920 town council of women, the valley Rockefeller bought through a front company, and the peaks that rise with no foothills at all.
Joshua Tree & the Southern Deserts
Two deserts meet at Joshua Tree — Mojave high, Colorado low — with Pioneertown's film-set main street, the accidental Salton Sea, Salvation Mountain, and the badlands and dark skies of Anza-Borrego.
Kanab & the Grand Staircase
The red-rock crossroads of southern Utah — the movie-history town of Kanab, the Coral Pink Sand Dunes, and the largest animal sanctuary in the country.
Las Cruces, the Gila & the Southwest
The Mesilla plaza under three flags, the first wilderness in the world, the Gila cliff dwellings, Mangas Coloradas and Victorio, and Villa's raid on Columbus.
Las Vegas & the Colorado River
Nevada's far south — beyond the neon, the red sandstone of Valley of Fire and Red Rock, the wall of Hoover Dam, and the long blue reach of Lake Mead.
Los Angeles Harbor & the South Bay
Tongva sea country, where ti'ats crossed to Pimu — then the harbor Los Angeles won in Congress and built from nothing, the village it erased at Fish Harbor, and the beach towns that decided who belonged.
Mesa Verde & the Four Corners
Cliff Palace and six hundred cliff dwellings, the 1891 collector whose digging fed the Antiquities Act, and the Ute Mountain tribal park no one enters without a Ute guide.
Missoula & the Bitterroot
Séliš country: Charlo's long refusal to leave the Bitterroot, Lewis and Clark's proven camp at Travelers' Rest, the Nez Perce on the Lolo Trail, and Lake Missoula's shorelines.
Moab & Canyon Country
Utah's red-rock basecamp on the Colorado River — Arches, Canyonlands, and a dense web of overlooks, river roads, and slickrock around the town of Moab.
Monument Valley & the Trail of the Ancients
Utah's remote far southeast — Monument Valley, the San Juan River canyons, and the Ancestral Puebloan country of the Trail of the Ancients.
Mount Rainier & the South Cascades
Puyallup, Nisqually, Cowlitz and Klickitat country — Mount Rainier and its record snows, the mudflows under Orting, Mount St. Helens, and the Washington bank of the Gorge to Maryhill.
Navajo & Hopi Country
The Colorado Plateau's tribal heart — Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, the Hopi mesas, Lake Powell and Antelope Canyon, and the banded ground of the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, across the homelands of the Diné and Hopi.
Nevada Silver Trails
South-central Nevada's mining country — Tonopah and Goldfield, the ghost town of Rhyolite, Cathedral Gorge's clay spires, and the long straight run of the Extraterrestrial Highway.
North Cascades & Lake Chelan
Wenatchi, Chelan, Entiat and Methow country — the North Cascades Highway, Lake Chelan and roadless Stehekin, the Wenatchi fishery promised and never set aside, and Leavenworth.
North Sound & the San Juan Islands
Lummi, Swinomish, Samish and Nooksack country — the reef nets of the Salish Sea, the Pig War on San Juan Island, Ebey's Landing on Whidbey, and the Skagit flats.
Northeast Oregon
Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce country — Pendleton and the Round-Up, Tamástslikt, the Oregon Trail over the Blue Mountains, Baker City, and Old Joseph's grave at Wallowa Lake.
Park City & the Wasatch Back
Salt Lake's high-country playground — Park City's ski resorts and silver-mining history, the Mirror Lake Highway into the Uintas, and the Heber Valley.
Pikes Peak & the Royal Gorge
Tava-kaavi and the Ute Pass trail, Cripple Creek's gold and the miners deported at gunpoint, and the gorge two railroads fought over.
Portland & the Willamette Valley
Kalapuya country and the end of the Oregon Trail — Oregon City and Willamette Falls, Champoeg, Portland, Salem and Eugene, and the Grand Ronde tribe that bought the falls back in 2019.
Red Rock Country & the Central Highlands
Arizona's red-rock center — Sedona's sandstone spires and the green Verde Valley below, the copper ghost town of Jerome on Cleopatra Hill, and the pine-ringed old territorial capital at Prescott.
Reno–Tahoe & the Comstock
Nevada's western edge — Lake Tahoe's east shore, the silver boomtown of Virginia City, and the capital at Carson City, where the Sierra meets the sagebrush.
Riverside & the Citrus Belt
The Citrus Belt from Chino to Redlands — Maara'yam homeland, then the valley the Washington navel rebuilt. Eliza Tibbets's parent orange tree, Riverside's Mission Inn, and the labor the groves ran on.
Rocky Mountain National Park & the North
Folsom hunters at Lindenmeier, the Arapaho elders who named the peaks in 1914, Trail Ridge Road over the Divide, and the colony Nathan Meeker founded before White River.
Route 66 & the Colorado River
The Mother Road and the water border with California — the longest surviving stretch of Route 66 from Seligman through Kingman to Oatman, the Black Mountains switchbacks, and the Colorado River lakes from Lake Havasu down to Yuma.
Route 66 & the Eastern Plains
Hwéeldi at Bosque Redondo and the treaty signed there, the Blue Hole at Santa Rosa, Tucumcari's neon, and the points found at Blackwater Draw.
Route 66 & the Mojave Heartland
Route 66 crosses the Colorado at Needles and runs its emptiest miles — Amboy, the Kelso Depot, Calico's silver hills, and Barstow's Harvey House — through the homeland of the 'Aha Makhav, the People by the River.
Route 66 West: Cajon to the Sea
The Mother Road's last miles — down Cajon Pass into Tovaangar, the Tongva world, past the Wigwam Motel and Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard to the pier at Santa Monica, where the road runs out at the Pacific.
Salt Lake & the Wasatch Front
Utah's capital and the urban corridor along the mountains — Temple Square, the Great Salt Lake, the Cottonwood ski canyons, Ogden, and the Golden Spike.
San Fernando & Santa Clarita Valleys
Tataviam and Tongva country behind the hills — Mission San Fernando at the village of Achoicominga, California's first gold and first oil well, and the Owens Valley water that arrives at the Cascades.
Santa Fe & the Jemez
The Palace of the Governors and the revolt that emptied it, the ends of two trails, Bandelier's canyon homes, and the hidden city on the Pajarito Plateau.
Seattle & Puget Sound
Coast Salish country on the Sound — Leschi and the Medicine Creek treaty, the city named for Si'ahl, the Bainbridge Island exclusion memorial, and the state ferries.
Sheridan, Buffalo & the Bighorns
Red Cloud's War on the Bozeman Trail and the forts burned in 1868, the Cheyenne village destroyed on the Red Fork, and the cattlemen's invasion of Johnson County.
Sonoma & Mendocino Coast
Kashaya Pomo and Pomo shoreline from Bodega Bay to Rockport — Jenner, Fort Ross, Sea Ranch, Point Arena, Mendocino and Fort Bragg, the doghole coves the lumber schooners worked, and a coast Californians won back for walking.
Southern Oregon
Takelma country in the Rogue and Umpqua valleys — the Table Rocks, the gold-rush town of Jacksonville, Medford's orchards, Ashland and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Oregon Caves.
Spokane & the Northeast
Spokane, Kalispel, Colville and Lakes country — the 1858 Wright campaign and Hangman Creek, Spokane Falls and Expo '74, Kettle Falls and the Ceremony of Tears, and Chief Joseph's grave at Nespelem.
Taos & the Northern Mountains
Taos Pueblo and the return of Blue Lake, Ohkay Owingeh where Oñate set his first capital, the Jicarilla homeland at Dulce, and O'Keeffe's Abiquiú.
The Arkansas Valley & the Santa Fe Trail
Bent's adobe fort on the old border, Sand Creek and the two officers who held back their men, the Ludlow tent colony, and the camp named for a Cheyenne woman.
The Central Rockies
Leadville's silver and the Tabor fortune that vanished in 1893, the valley where the 10th Mountain Division learned to fight on skis, and Aspen's second life.
The Columbia River Gorge & Mount Hood
Wasco and Wishram country on the Columbia — Celilo Falls, drowned in 1957, the first scenic highway in America past Multnomah Falls, Sam Barlow's toll road around Mount Hood, and Timberline Lodge.
The Grand Canyon & the San Francisco Peaks
Arizona's high volcanic north — the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the ponderosa city of Flagstaff, the San Francisco Peaks sacred to the Hopi and Diné, and the cinder cones and lava flows that built this country.
The Hi-Line
The Chippewa Cree, Aaniiih, Nakoda, Assiniboine and Sioux reservations, the Marias Massacre, the Nez Perce surrender at Bear Paw, the homestead line and Fort Peck Dam.
The Idaho Panhandle
Schitsu'umsh and Ktunaxa country at the top of Idaho — Coeur d'Alene Lake, the Silver Valley's mining towns and the last stoplight on I-90, the state's oldest building at Cataldo, and Lake Pend Oreille.
The Loneliest Road
US-50 across the middle of Nevada — basin and range, basin and range, from Fallon to Ely, with Great Basin National Park and its bristlecone pines at the far end.
The Magic Valley
The irrigated Snake River Plain — Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls and Evel Knievel's ramp, Thousand Springs and the Hagerman fossil beds, Minidoka's hard history, and City of Rocks on the California Trail.
The Mogollon Rim & the White Mountains
The great forested escarpment and the Apache high country — the long wall of the Mogollon Rim, the alpine White Mountains, the plunge of Salt River Canyon, and the Coronado Trail, on the homelands of the Western Apache.
The North Oregon Coast
Clatsop and Tillamook country from Astoria south — Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark wintered, the oldest American town west of the Rockies, Cannon Beach and the Beach Bill, and the Siletz, restored in 1977.
The Northeastern Plains
The South Platte road and Colorado's only Pony Express station, the raids that burned Julesburg after Sand Creek, Beecher Island, and Summit Springs.
The Olympic Peninsula & the Coast
Makah, Klallam, Quinault and Chinook country — Neah Bay and the Ozette finds, the Hoh rainforest, the undammed Elwha, and the vote at Station Camp on the Columbia.
The Oregon High Desert
Wadatika Paiute country in the Great Basin — Malheur Lake and the Burns Paiute, Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert, the Owyhee canyons, and the ten-thousand-year-old sandals of Fort Rock.
The Payette River Mountains
The Boise Basin gold camps and Idaho City, once larger than Portland, the Chinese miners who stayed, Highway 55 up the Payette to McCall, and the three dams that closed the Snake to salmon.
The Pecos & Carlsbad Caverns
The bat flight at Carlsbad Caverns, the cattle trail up the Pecos, Roswell's 1947 debris, and the salt beds where the country buries its nuclear waste.
The Portneuf & Bear River Country
Newe country from Fort Hall to Bear Lake — Boa Ogoi, the Bear River Massacre site now in Shoshone hands, the Oregon Trail at old Fort Hall, Pocatello, Franklin, Lava Hot Springs and Soda Springs.
The Redwood Coast
The redwood coast from Leggett to Oregon — the Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt Bay, Trinidad, Redwood National and State Parks and Crescent City, in Wiyot, Yurok and Tolowa Dee-ni' country, with the roadless Lost Coast to the west.
The Rocky Mountain Front & the Upper Missouri
Amskapi Piikani country: the mountains the Blackfeet sold to survive, the Great Falls portage, Fort Benton's steamboat levee, and the Maiasaura nests near Choteau.
The San Juans & the Black Canyon
The 1873 sale of the high San Juans, the Ames plant where alternating current went to work, Butch Cassidy's first bank, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
The San Luis Valley
The tallest dunes in North America, Colorado's oldest town and its first water right, the heirs who won back La Sierra, and the fort Kit Carson commanded.
The Santa Fe Trail & the Northeast
Fort Union's adobe ruins, the plaza where Kearny claimed New Mexico, Pecos Pueblo, the Folsom bison bones, and Capulin's cinder cone.
The Sawtooths & the Salmon River
Agaidika Shoshone country on the upper Salmon — Lemhi Pass and Sacagawea's people, the River of No Return, Borah Peak, Stanley and the Sawtooths, Redfish Lake's sockeye, and Sun Valley.
The Sonoran South & the Borderlands
Saguaro desert, silver towns, and the border missions — Tucson under its sky-island ranges, Saguaro National Park, the Spanish missions at San Xavier and Tumacácori, and the mining towns of Tombstone and Bisbee, on Tohono O'odham land near the Mexico line.
The South Oregon Coast
Coos, Siuslaw and Coquille country from Florence to the California line — forty miles of the Oregon Dunes, Bandon's sea stacks, Cape Blanco's light, and Brookings, bombed from the air in 1942.
The Southeastern Badlands
Lakota and Northern Cheyenne country: the Powder River attack that opened the Great Sioux War, the Hell Creek beds that gave up T. rex, and Evelyn Cameron's plains.
The Valley of the Sun
The desert metropolis on the canal builders' ground — Phoenix and its cities, the Superstition Mountains and the old Apache Trail, all laid over the irrigation canals the ancestral Huhugam dug and the Akimel O'odham still farm beside.
The Western Slope & the Northwest
The plowed racetrack at White River and the removal of the Utes, the canyon John Otto talked into a monument, and the dam that was never built at Echo Park.
The Yakima Valley & the Tri-Cities
Yakama and Wanapum country — the 1855 treaty and the nation it made, the irrigated valley, Hanford's B Reactor and the towns it erased, and the meeting of the Snake and the Columbia.
Utah Valley
The valley between Utah Lake and Mount Timpanogos — Provo's canyons and waterfalls, Sundance, Timpanogos Cave, and the family attractions of Lehi.
Walla Walla & the Palouse
Cayuse, Walla Walla, Palus and Nez Perce country — the epidemic at Waiilatpu, the 1855 treaty council, the wheat hills of the Palouse, Palouse Falls, and the lower end of Hells Canyon.
White Sands & the Sacramento Mountains
The gypsum dunes and the footprints found in them, the Mescalero Apache homeland, the Lincoln County War, and the cub rescued from the Capitan fire.
Wind River Country
The reservation the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho share, the cession of 1905, South Pass and its wagon road, and the gold camp that sent the suffrage bill to Cheyenne.
Yellowstone
Tukudika country and a quarry whose obsidian reached Ontario, the first national park, the Nimiipuu crossing of 1877, the Army years at Mammoth, and the summer of 1988.
Yellowstone Country
Apsáalooke country: the Clovis child reburied near Wilsall, the Crow land ceded below the park, the Roosevelt Arch at Gardiner, and Earthquake Lake on the Madison.