Before the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers, Utah was inhabited by several Indian tribes including the Ute, for whom the state is named. From the beginning of Mormon settlement in 1847, the pioneers set about wresting a green land from the deserts, gradually supplementing their crops with the products of industry and the earth. The economy of present-day Utah is based on manufacturing, tourism, and services, in addition to agriculture and mining.

Altitudes range from 13,528 feet (4,123 metres) at Kings Peak in the Uintas to about 2,000 feet in the southwestern corner of the state. The Oquirrh and Deep Creek ranges of the Great Basin are important for their deposits of copper, gold, lead, and zinc.

Irrigation was among the first Mormon pioneer efforts in 1847, and since then irrigation and water conservation have become increasingly important. The irrigation complex in Utah comprises a number of dams, reservoirs, canals and ditches, pipelines, and flowing wells, exclusive of the large Glen Canyon and Flaming Gorge dams. State boards and departments regulate water use, while the division of health maintains quality water standards under the Water Pollution Control Act of 1953.

Utah's geographic location in relation to the mountain systems of the West, which divert much of the area's precipitation, makes it basically an arid state. Southwestern Utah, which has a warm, almost dry, subtropical climate, however, is referred to as Utah's “Dixie.” The southern part of the Colorado Plateau has cool, dry winters and wet summers, with frequent thunderstorms. Northern Utah is affected by air masses from the North Pacific and continental polar air; it receives most of its precipitation in the cool season.

The state has four distinct seasons. The average temperature in July is about 70° F (21° C). In winter the average temperature is slightly below freezing except in Dixie. Daily temperatures vary widely: when Salt Lake City has July highs of 90° F (32° C) or above, the nights are 55° to 65° F (13° to 18° C). Relatively low humidity prevails; average precipitation is 11 inches (280 millimetres) a year, varying from less than eight inches annually over the Great Salt Lake Desert to 50 inches in the Wasatch Mountains. The average annual snowfall is 4 ¹/₂ feet, ranging from none in the southwestern valleys to more than 10 feet at ski resorts. The average growing season is 131 days.

Utah's 4,000 plant species represent six climatic zones, from the arid Lower Sonoran in the southwestern Virgin Valley to the Arctic on mountain peaks. In the south are found creosote bush, mesquite, cactus, yucca, and Joshua tree; the alkaline deserts are the habitat of shad scale, saltbush, and greasewood. Juniper and sagebrush grow in the foothills and mountain valleys, as do piñon pine, cedar, and native grasses for grazing. In the mountains grow pines, firs, aspen, and blue spruce. Timber covers more than 15,000,000 acres (6,000,000 hectares), but only about one-fourth of the forestland is commercially valuable.

The mule deer is the most common of Utah's large animals since bison, timber wolves, and grizzly bears have largely disappeared. Coyotes, bobcats, and lynx are hunted. Game birds include grouse, quail, and pheasants; golden eagles, hawks, owls, and magpies are numerous. Great Salt Lake bird refuges are the home of sea gulls, blue herons, and white pelicans. Several species of game fish are native, while others have been introduced. Reptiles and amphibians, both poisonous and nonpoisonous, are native.

About two-thirds of Utah's land is federally owned, and 7 percent is owned by the state. About 4 percent is reserved for Indian use.

The Wasatch Front, extending north–south from Ogden to Provo and including Salt Lake City, is the main area of urban and industrial development. Salt Lake City is the political, cultural, and religious capital of Utah. Historically a trade centre, it continues to be a hub for industry, commerce, and interstate transportation.

The Front has not only the largest part of the population but also the best farmland in the state. Although tens of thousands of acres of cropland have been urbanized since 1958 and an urban trend continues, a rural society is still observable. Rural settlements typically have a “Mormon village” flavour, with a readily recognizable Mormon chapel or tabernacle within the town, wide streets, and a cultivated area surrounding the town itself.

The population is about 95 percent white, mainly of northern European ancestry. The remainder are Hispanics, Indians, Asians, blacks, and other minorities. Except for Indians, nearly 80 percent of the minority population lives in the three Wasatch Front counties of Salt Lake, Davis, and Weber.

The population of San Juan county is about one-half Indian, containing almost 30 percent of Utah's Indians (Native American). These are mostly Navajo, who reside primarily in the Four Corners region of the Navajo Indian Reservation. The Ute live on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. Annually sponsored events include the bear dance in the spring, the Sun Dance in July, and the Uinta Basin Industrial Fair in August or September. A number of Southern Paiutes, among the most economically depressed of the tribes, live on several small reservations in southern Utah.

People of Hispanic origin constitute the state's largest minority group. Increasing attention is being paid to the problems of educating and acculturating this group, many of whom are low-income workers in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and services.

Although Mormons represent 90 percent of all religious adherents in Utah, Roman Catholics can be found throughout the state. Baptists, Lutherans, and other Protestant denominations are also represented.

From 1847 to 1868 the Mormons built a self-sufficient economy based on agriculture, handicrafts, and small industry. From 1869 to 1896 this cooperative economy was supplemented by a non-Mormon enclave devoted to mining and trading. After statehood the exportable resources of the state were exploited to an increasing extent by outside corporations and enterprisers, and the agriculture of the state turned toward range cattle, wool, and such commercial crops as sugar beets. The economic depressions of 1921 and of the 1930s were severe, but federal programs and the welfare program of the Mormon church helped the state to recover. During World War II several defense plants and air bases were built, and Utah had a uranium boom. In the late 1950s several large plants were erected to build rocket engines for missiles.

The state's economy is highly diversified. The agricultural and mining sectors have been supplemented by light and heavy manufacturing, finance, transportation, and tourism. Salt Lake City is a regional centre of finance and trade, and many large enterprises have offices there.

A fair percentage of the nation's new copper is produced annually in Utah, but a decline in world copper prices in the 1980s brought Utah's copper production facilities to a standstill by 1985. Reorganization of the industry has allowed some production to continue. Utah is the world's foremost producer of beryllium, and it is a major producer of gold, silver, lead, uranium, and molybdenum. Salt (sodium chloride) was once the only mineral extracted in quantity from the Great Salt Lake, but sophisticated chemical industries now operate on the shores of the lake, using its brines to also produce magnesium, potassium sulfate, and sodium sulfate for industrial use throughout the world.

Utah is a major producer of coal west of the Mississippi, and it is the only state producing Gilsonite, a source of road oil, paving binder, and asphalt tile. In addition to steam plants, Utah has many hydroelectric plants.

Following the national trend, farm employment and the number of farms in Utah have declined since 1960, but productivity has increased. Almost three-fourths of Utah's farm income comes from livestock products, the remainder from field crops, fruit, and canning crops.

Business and military services and state and federal government employment continue to increase at a faster rate than other sectors of the economy. The proportion of personal income derived from manufacturing is below average, however. Printing and publishing, food processing, petroleum refining, and the production of transportation equipment, computer hardware and software, nonelectrical machinery, rocket engines, and fabricated-metal products are the major manufacturing sectors.

Utah's transportation industry, with easy access to all national markets, is the basis for the state's development as a major distribution centre for the West. Although railway mileage has decreased, road traffic has expanded; several interstate highways supplement the state system. In addition to the international airport serving Salt Lake City, there are excellent feeder line facilities in Ogden, Logan, Provo, Cedar City, and St. George.

The governor is aided by a lieutenant governor (who also performs the duties of a secretary of state), auditor, treasurer, and attorney general, while much of the administration of routine state affairs is done through more than 50 state agencies. Each of these officials serves a four-year term. The governor has the right to veto any bill, but that decision may be overruled through repassage of the bill by a two-thirds majority of each house of the legislature. Any bill passed by the legislature and not acted upon by the governor within 10 days while the legislature is in session automatically becomes law. The governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general together form the State Board of Examiners, which reviews all official state transactions.

Legislative power is vested in the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as in the voters, who have the power to initiate legislation and to hold a referendum on all laws not passed by a two-thirds majority of both houses. The legislature consists of 29 senators serving four-year terms and 75 representatives serving two-year terms.

The legislature meets annually in 45-day sessions. Special sessions may be called by the governor. Four councils provide investigation and research of specific legislative and state problems; advice on budgetary matters and appropriation requests; and legislative administration.

The highest judicial authority is the state Supreme Court, composed of five justices elected to 10-year terms, one every two years. Judges of the seven district courts are elected for six-year terms. The state also has circuit courts and justices of the peace. A juvenile court system has its own districts and judges.

All of Utah's counties are political subdivisions of the state and carry out administrative, judicial, law enforcement, financial, health, educational, and welfare functions assigned by the state and federal governments. All but one of the counties are governed by the traditional three-member commission form of government. The other, Cache County, has an elected executive with part-time council members who perform judicial and policy-making functions. Counties perform municipal-type services in unincorporated areas as citizens demand, and they perform other services demanded or requested by citizens and permitted or not prohibited by state statutes.

Forms of municipal government vary according to population. Salt Lake City, the only city with a population of more than 90,000, elects a mayor and city council. Cities between 15,000 and 90,000 elect a mayor and two commissioners, while smaller cities elect a mayor and five council members. Incorporated towns are governed by a president and four trustees. Any city commission or town council has the power to appoint a city manager.

Although Utah is referred to frequently as a Republican state, actually no party can claim dominance. Elected officials from both parties work well together and show a reasonable degree of harmony. This has been true since the early 1890s, when the normally homogeneous Mormon populace was divided into political parties by church leaders to comply with federal requirements for statehood.

Utah's broadly based tax structure appears to distribute the costs of government among all segments of the economy. The corporate income tax rate is lower than that of most Western states. A liberal free-port tax law granting tax exemptions on goods warehoused and processed in Utah is an incentive to commerce.

More than half of Utah's governmental expenditure is for education. Utah has the highest proportion of its population in public schools, the highest proportion of high school graduates, and the highest median level of school years completed of any state in the nation.

The school districts levy taxes that pay for almost half of educational expenses, the remainder being paid by the state. General public school regulations are administered by the state Board of Education; elected local boards exercise more specific control. There is a growing number of private elementary and secondary schools.

The largest of Utah's state universities is the University of Utah (Utah, University of), in Salt Lake City. It was founded in 1850 as the University of Deseret and has a reputation for outstanding graduate and professional schools of medicine, law, and pharmacology. Utah State University, in Logan, founded in 1888 as a land-grant school, has achieved national status in the fields of agriculture, forestry, education, engineering science, upper-atmosphere research, and the fine arts. Weber State College (1889), in Ogden, and Southern Utah State College (1897), in Cedar City, are schools with rapidly expanding programs and facilities. Dixie College (1911), in St. George, and College of Eastern Utah (1938), in Price, are state junior colleges. Community colleges offering technical and other courses are located in Salt Lake City and Provo.

The state, county, and local governments have developed programs to improve the economic and social status of minority groups.

Health, welfare, and housing services are administered by the Department of Social Services. County health services are supervised and coordinated by the state Board of Health, which also works with school boards for child health care. Outstanding hospital systems are administered by independent health organizations and by the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches.

The state's welfare program includes comprehensive old-age assistance, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation, and other social benefits. Efforts have been made to improve and upgrade outdated labour and hazardous-occupation laws. A division of low-income housing within the Department of Community Affairs facilitates better planning and coordination in that area. The Mormon church also has an extensive welfare program.

Because the population of Utah is overwhelmingly Mormon, the church has a strong influence on the state's cultural life and traditions. The church is divided into “stakes,” consisting of six to 10 local congregations, or “wards,” of about 500 members each. Each stake has a “tabernacle,” or stake centre, with one or more chapels and recreational and cultural facilities. Each ward, or occasionally two or three wards together, owns a chapel with a centre for collective worship, classrooms, a basketball court, and a dance hall. Mormon culture emphasizes closely knit family life, widespread interest in family genealogy, prohibitions against consumption of alcoholic beverages and use of tobacco, a relatively small amount of nightlife, and participation in sports and personal-development programs. Other denominations also are active in cultural areas. Particularly notable is the annual St. Marks Arts Festival, which includes music, dancing, poetry reading, drama, and other creative arts.

Park City and Pioneer Village in Salt Lake City are Old West towns containing original buildings and furnishings. Every county holds a fair in the autumn, highlighted by displays and competitions, concessions, and often a rodeo.

On July 24 almost all communities hold Pioneer Day, commemorating the entrance of the Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake valley. It includes parades, fireworks, rodeos, orations, and reminders of Utah's early settlers.

The Division of Fine Arts, founded in 1899, is the oldest state arts agency in the nation. Its purpose is to promote all branches of the fine arts. It sponsors the Utah Governor's Conference on the Arts, and it allocates funds advanced to the state by federal agencies.

The most famous buildings in Utah are the many-spired Mormon Temple and the turtleback Mormon Tabernacle, both in Salt Lake City. The latter was built in the 1860s. It holds up to 8,000 people and has rare acoustical qualities that enrich the sounds of its world-famous organ with some 10,700 pipes. There are also notable Mormon temples in St. George, Manti, Provo, South Jordan, Ogden, and Logan.

Among the performing arts, music is emphasized. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 325 members with trained but nonprofessional voices, presents concerts and national weekly radio and television broadcasts. The Utah Symphony Orchestra, Utah Opera Company, and Salt Lake Oratorio Society are other major ensembles. The major universities have symphonies and choral groups performing in winter, as well as summer festivals and concerts.

Dance companies in Utah include Ballet West, which features classical ballet, and the Repertory Dance Theatre, which features modern dance. The University of Utah Children's Dance Theatre and the Brigham Young University folk-dance troupes are well known.

Utah gained an early start in drama with the opening of the Salt Lake Theater in 1862. A replica has been constructed on the University of Utah campus, and performances are held there regularly. The Mormon church emphasizes folk drama in its youth organization; more than 2,000 wards produce at least one play a year, many of them written locally. These culminate biennially in a large drama festival in Salt Lake City. The annual Utah Shakespearean Festival is held in Cedar City.

Salt Lake City has professional basketball, hockey, and baseball teams, and auto racing on the Bonneville Salt Flats has gained international importance. The Mormon church sponsors competitive team sports involving thousands of players, with basketball, softball, and golf tournaments that are among the largest in the nation.

As early as 10,000 BC, small groups of hunters and gatherers lived in caves by the great inland sea, prehistoric Lake Bonneville (Bonneville, Lake). This desert culture was replaced about AD 400 by the more advanced Pueblo, or Ancestral Pueblo (Ancestral Pueblo culture) (Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo culture)), culture, which came into Utah from what is now the Southwest and Mexico. These Indians (Native American) constructed superb communal cliff dwellings (cliff dwelling) and raised corn (maize), squash, and beans. They left Utah about 1250, perhaps because of an extended drought.

When white explorers and settlers came to Utah in the 18th and 19th centuries, they encountered Shoshone Indians—the Southern Paiute, Gosiute, and Ute—some of whom raised corn and pumpkins by irrigation. The Ute in eastern Utah lived in a region of higher rainfall; having acquired horses from Plains Indians, their nomadic life centred around the buffalo.

Two Franciscan fathers, Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, explored Utah in 1776, and afterward Utah was visited by occasional Spanish trading parties. fur trappers and immigrants to California and Oregon were in the region in the 1820s and '30s. The first four of some 16 annual rendezvous between trappers and buyers were held in Utah from 1825 to 1828, indicating the early importance of the area to the fur trade. The “mountain men” who explored and established trading posts included James Bridger (Bridger, Jim), who first visited the Great Salt Lake in 1824, and Jedediah Smith (Smith, Jedediah), who first traversed the state from north to south and west to east in 1826–27. Explorers sent by the government included John C. Frémont (Frémont, John C), who led expeditions to northern Utah in 1843 and the western Great Salt Lake area in 1845.

The period of settlement and territorial status is notable for the ending of the quest (1845–47) for a Mormon homeland, wrestling with an arid environment, the contest for sovereignty between Utah and the United States, and the conflict with indigenous Indians over the use of the land.

When wagonloads of Mormon pioneers under the leadership of Brigham Young (Young, Brigham) first entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, they were determined to transform the arid valley land into a green and wholesome “kingdom of God.” From Salt Lake City (until 1868 called Great Salt Lake City) settlers were directed to colonize in all directions until they had developed a prosperous and stable economy and political structure in a territory that was originally 210,000 square miles in area, stretching from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada and from the Columbia River in Oregon to the Gila in Arizona. Immigrant converts continued to stream into Utah from Europe and the eastern United States; they were organized into colonizing parties based on allocations of skills and leadership abilities and sent out to build the territory. By 1860 more than 150 self-sustaining communities with a total of 40,000 residents had been established, irrigating crops with water from mountain streams carried through canals to the alluvial valley lands. Utah's place in the national scene was symbolized by the driving of the golden spike at Promontory in 1869, uniting the eastward- and westward-reaching lines of the nation's first transcontinental railroad.

Conflict with the Indians was held to a minimum until the colonizers became more and more ubiquitous and local Indians began to raid the settlements. The Ute were eventually placed on a reservation in the Uinta Basin, the Southern Paiute and Shoshone on smaller reservations, and later the lands south of the San Juan River were incorporated into the Navajo Reservation.

The propensity of the Mormons to establish their own political and social system and the incompetency of federal territorial officials led to an era of conflict with the federal government. In 1857 President James Buchanan (Buchanan, James), believing the Mormons to be in a state of open rebellion, ordered some 2,500 soldiers to Utah to replace Young, who had served as governor during the early years. This episode is referred to as the Utah War, although no armed clashes occurred. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, a new camp was established east of Salt Lake City under the command of Colonel Patrick Connor. Connor openly supported his troops in prospecting for minerals and sought to “solve the Mormon problem” by initiating a miners' rush to Utah. A substantial enclave of non-Mormon miners, freighters, bankers, and businessmen arrived, and there ensued three decades of conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons.

The Mormon settlers applied for statehood in 1849 under the name Deseret, a word from the sacred Book of Mormon meaning “honeybee” and signifying industry. This bid was rejected, as were the efforts of five subsequent constitutional conventions between 1856 and 1887. Before the U.S. Congress and the national administration would assent to statehood for Utah, Mormon leaders were required to discontinue the church's involvement in politics through its People's Party, withdraw from an economic policy in which Mormons dealt primarily with each other, and discontinue the practice of polygamy.

After its acceptance into the Union in 1896, Utah moved rapidly into the mainstream of the nation. The political structure changed from theocracy to a conventional democracy: non-Mormons (Mormon) were elected to important positions, including the office of governor. The Mormon church has been officially neutral in politics since the early 1900s, and the influence of economic blocs has become far more important. That Utah's traditional spirit of community-mindedness survives was illustrated by the thousands who joined, on short notice, to counteract the devastation of heavy spring flooding in Salt Lake City in 1983.