Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, it is the 117th most populous city in the United States,[10] the city is the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which had a population of 1,257,936 at the 2020 census. Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area, a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along a 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front, comprising a population of 2,746,164 (as of 2024 estimates), making it the 22nd largest in the nation. It is also the central core of the larger of only two major urban areas located within the Great Basin (the other being Reno, Nevada).
Salt Lake City was founded on July 24, 1847 by early pioneer settlers led by Brigham Young who were seeking to escape persecution they had experienced while living farther east. The Mormon pioneers, as they would come to be known, entered a semi-arid valley and immediately began planning and building an extensive irrigation network which could feed the population and foster future growth. Salt Lake City’s street grid system is based on a standard compass grid plan, with the southeast corner of Temple Square (the area containing the Salt Lake Temple in downtown Salt Lake City) serving as the origin of the Salt Lake meridian. Owing to its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, the city was originally named Great Salt Lake City. In 1868, the word “Great” was dropped from the city’s name.
Immigration of international members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church),mining booms, and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad initially brought economic growth, and the city was nicknamed “The Crossroads of the West”. It was traversed by the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, in 1913. Two major cross-country freeways, I-15 and I-80, now intersect in the city. The city also has a belt route.
Salt Lake City has developed a strong tourist industry based primarily on skiing, outdoor recreation, and religious tourism. It hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics and is a candidate city for the 2030 Winter Olympics. It is known for its politically liberal culture, which stands in contrast with the rest of the state’s highly conservative leanings. It is home to a significant LGBT community and hosts the annual Utah Pride Festival. It is the industrial banking center of the United States. Salt Lake City and the surrounding area are also the location of several institutions of higher education including the state’s flagship research school, the University of Utah. Sustained drought in Utah has more recently strained Salt Lake City’s water security and caused the Great Salt Lake level to drop to record low levels, and has impacted the local and state economy.
History of Salt Lake City
Ute and Shoshone Indians were early inhabitants of the area. The city was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young and a band of 148 Mormons as a refuge from religious persecution and was known as Great Salt Lake City until 1868. Laid out by Young according to Joseph Smith’s plan for the city of Zion, the city was divided into 10-acre (4-hectare) blocks bounded by wide streets grouped around the Temple Block (now known as Temple Square). Mormon immigrants from the East and Europe flocked to the “New Jerusalem,” the “City of the Saints,” in the Provisional State of Deseret (a Book of Mormon word interpreted as “honeybee”). The California Gold Rush of 1849 contributed to the city’s growth.
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Utah passed to U.S. sovereignty and became a territory in 1850. Salt Lake City was the territorial capital from 1856 to 1896, when it became the capital of the new state. Conflicts between Mormons and U.S. officials led to the so-called Utah War of 1857–58, when General Albert Sidney Johnston’s troops marched through the city to establish Camp Floyd west of Utah Lake. Social and religious conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons continued to influence the life of the city for a century.
The opening of the mining industry in the early 1860s and completion (1870) of the Utah Central Railroad, connecting Salt Lake City with the Union Pacific at Ogden, along with other rail connections, made the city a thriving hub of Western commerce. The city’s population grew steadily in the first half of the 20th century, reaching a high in 1960 before declining. The number of residents began rising again in the 1970s and achieved the 1960 level in the early 21st century. Salt Lake City was the host of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
The contemporary city of Salt Lake City
Mining operations near Salt Lake City produce copper, gold, molybdenum, platinum, selenium, silver, lead, and zinc, and various salts are produced from the lake. The city is a regional trade and transportation centre and has an international airport. Services such as government, education, health care, and financial and business services are a major part of the economy. High-technology industries and telecommunications are also primary factors. Printing and publishing are important, and manufactures include medical products, computer equipment, software, and aerospace products. Tourism contributes greatly to the economy, with more than a dozen ski areas located near the city. It is also a trade, processing, and transportation centre for agricultural products from nearby irrigated farmlands.
Educational institutions include the University of Utah (1850), Westminster College (1875), and Salt Lake Community College (1948). Salt Lake City is a world centre of genealogy research; the Family Search Center and Family History Library contain records of some two billion names. Monuments and buildings include the Mormon Tabernacle (1863–75; famous for its choir), Salt Lake Temple (1853–93), and the Seagull Monument (1913), all within Temple Square. Near the square are Beehive and Lion houses (residences for Brigham Young’s families) and Young’s grave. The State Capitol (1916), built of Utah granite and marble in Corinthian style, has an exhibition hall.
Salt Lake Temple
Salt Lake Temple, house of worship that occupies a central position within Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, and within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With its smooth granite exterior and six soaring spires, it sits in Temple Square, a downtown oasis of calm, surrounded by other important Mormon buildings such as the Assembly Hall, a visitor’s centre, and the Tabernacle, as well as the adjacent Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the Conference Center. The Salt Lake Temple is the sixth Mormon temple to be completed and the largest temple in area.
Salt Lake City was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young, second president of the church, who led a group of Mormons into Utah to establish a new colony, and it remains the headquarters of the Mormon church today. The location for the richly symbolic temple was chosen just four days after Young and his party arrived in Salt Lake. Groundbreaking took place in 1853, and the building took more than 40 years to complete, with the 1857–58 conflict between the Mormons and the U.S. government known as the Utah War or Buchanan’s Blunder delaying construction, and the interior finally being completed in just a year. Granite from the local Little Cottonwood Canyon was used in the building work, and the exterior is full of complex symbolism depicting the journey of humankind from life and death to the eternal ever after, as well as various other tenets of the religion. It is topped with a gold-leaf statue of the angel Moroni.
Wilford Woodruff, the church’s fourth president, dedicated the temple on April 6, 1893, and it continues to be the most important Mormon church. The temple is used not for ordinary worship but for special ceremonies and contains a room where the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles meet weekly. The temple has never been open for tours, and in 2019 it was closed for several years of extensive renovation.
Things To Do In Salt Lake City
In order for something to float it needs to be less dense than the water (or air) surrounding it. It’s part of the reason a piece of driftwood floats down a river and helium-filled balloons rise. It also explains one of Great Salt Lake’s most famous phenomena, the fact that swimmers float with little to no effort because the lake is so dense with salt.
In a way, that’s what Salt Lake City is all about — an effortless balance between nature and city living. The Capital City lies in between Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountain Range, and is growing into a vibrant blend of culture and heritage. Take a hike, find a new favorite restaurant, explore the state’s heritage or enjoy a lively night out. It’s all available to you in Salt Lake City, but just in case you aren’t sure where to start, here are a few of the city’s most popular things to do.
Culture
Museums and the arts
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Depot now serves as home to the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts and the Rio Gallery.
Salt Lake City is home to several museums. Near Temple Square is the Church History Museum. Operated by the LDS Church, the museum contains collections of artifacts, documents, art, photographs, tools, clothing and furniture from the history of the LDS Church, which spans nearly two centuries. West of Temple Square, at The Gateway, is the Clark Planetarium, which houses an IMAX theater, and Discovery Gateway, a children’s museum. The University of Utah campus is home to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts as well as the Natural History Museum of Utah. Other museums in the area include the Utah State Historical Society, Daughters of Utah Pioneers Memorial Museum, Fort Douglas Military Museum, the Social Hall Heritage Museum, and The Leonardo, a new art, science and technology museum housed in the previous Salt Lake City Library building.
Salt Lake City is home to several classic movie theaters including the Tower Theatre and the Broadway Theater, both of which host the Salt Lake Film Society members and shows. The Utah Film Center hosts free film screenings, many with post film Q and A’s with filmmakers or subject experts every Tuesday night at the Salt Lake Public Library and monthly at the Rose Wagner Theater.
On December 5, 2007, the Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance announced a two-block section of downtown south of the planned City Creek Center is planned to become a new arts hub. This will include renovations to two theaters in the area and a new theater with a seating capacity of 2,400 and increased space for galleries and artists. The opening of the new facilities was anticipated to coincide with the opening of the City Creek Center in 2011, but they have yet to be completed.[164] The $81.5 million theater site was announced, and attempts to secure funding began. The theater plans have come under criticism, however, especially from nearby smaller theaters which host Off-Broadway tours and claim such a theater cannot be supported and will hurt their business.
Performing arts
Abravanel Hall
Salt Lake City provides venues for both professional and amateur theatre. The city attracts traveling Broadway and Off-Broadway performances in the historic Capitol Theatre. Local professional acting companies include the Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake Acting Company, and Plan-B Theatre Company, which is the only theatre company in Utah fully devoted to developing new plays by Utah playwrights. The Off-Broadway Theatre, in Salt Lake’s historic Clift Building,[167] features comedy plays and Utah’s longest-running improv comedy troupe, Laughing Stock.
Salt Lake City is home to The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, founded in 1847 as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The choir’s weekly program, called Music and the Spoken Word, is the world’s longest-running continuous network broadcast.[168] Salt Lake City is the home to the Utah Symphony Orchestra, which was founded in 1940 and grew to become a major US orchestra during the tenure of its former music director, Maurice Abravanel, who led the orchestra from 1947 through 1979. Its music director is Thierry Fischer. The orchestra’s original home was the Salt Lake Tabernacle, but since 1979 has performed at Abravanel Hall in the western downtown area. In 2002, Utah Symphony merged with Utah Opera, which was founded in 1978 by Glade Peterson and under its Artistic Director Christopher McBeth annually presents four opera productions in the Capitol Theatre. Salt Lake City area is home to the renowned children’s choir from The Madeleine Choir School, and the Salt Lake Children’s Choir (established in 1979).
The University of Utah is home to two highly ranked dance departments, the Ballet Department and the Department of Modern Dance. Professional dance companies in Salt Lake City include Ballet West, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company (which celebrated its 45th anniversary season in 2008/2009) and Repertory Dance Theatre. The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center is host to both RWDC and RDT.
Music
The city has an eclectic music scene that includes hip hop, blues, rock and roll, rockabilly, punk, deathcore, horrorcore and indie groups. Popular groups or persons who started in the Wasatch Front area, or were raised in and influenced by it, include Iceburn, Eagle Twin, The Almost, The Brobecks, Meg and Dia, Royal Bliss, Shedaisy, The Summer Obsession, Theater of Ice, The Used and Chelsea Grin. Salt Lake has an underground metal scene with bands such as Gaza and Bird Eater. During the summer, Salt Lake City hosts the Twilight Concert series, a low-cost summer concert series. The series has been a part of the Salt Lake City music scene since the late 1980s. In 2010, crowds peaked at 40,000 attendees in downtown’s Pioneer Park.
Sports and recreation
Winter sports, such as skiing and snowboarding, are popular activities in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. Eight ski resorts lie within 50 miles (80 km) of the city. Alta, Brighton, Solitude, and Snowbird all lie directly to the southeast in the Wasatch Mountains, while nearby Park City contains three more resorts. The popularity of the ski resorts has increased by a third since the 2002 Winter Olympics. Summer activities such as hiking, camping, rock climbing, mountain biking, and other related outdoor activities are popular in the mountains. The many small reservoirs and rivers in the Wasatch Mountains are popular for boating, fishing, and other water-related activities.
Salt Lake City has hosted two of the most important and most watched games in basketball. The 1979 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game took place at the Special Events Center on the campus of the University of Utah, where Magic Johnson met Larry Bird for the first time in their legendary rivalry. Johnson’s Michigan State team defeated Bird’s previously unbeaten Indiana State team in the most watched college basketball game in history. Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals took place at the Delta Center, where Michael Jordan played his final game as a member of the Chicago Bulls. Jordan’s Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz to win their sixth championship in the most watched game in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Transportation
Roads
Salt Lake City lies at the convergence of two cross-country freeways; running north–south, and , which connects downtown with Salt Lake City International Airport to the west and exits to the east through Parley’s Canyon. I-215 forms a 270-degree loop around the city. SR-201 extends to the western Salt Lake City suburbs. The Legacy Parkway (SR-67), a controversial and oft-delayed freeway, opened September 2008, heading north from I-215 into Davis County along the east shore of the Great Salt Lake. Travel to and from Davis County is complicated by geography as roads have to squeeze through the narrow opening between the Great Salt Lake to the west and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. Only four roads run between the two counties to carry the load of rush hour traffic from Davis County.
Salt Lake City’s surface street system is laid out on a simple grid pattern. Road names are numbered with a north, south, east, or west designation, with the grid originating at the southeast corner of Temple Square downtown. One of the visions of Brigham Young and the early settlers was to create wide, spacious streets, which characterizes downtown. The grid pattern remains fairly intact in the city, except on the East Bench, where geography makes it impossible. The entire Salt Lake Valley is laid out on the same numbered grid system, although it becomes increasingly irregular further into the suburbs. Many streets carry both a name and a grid coordinate. Usually both can be used as an address. US-89 enters the city from the northwest, becomes 900 West Street through the northern part of the city, and then exits Salt Lake City as State Street (100 East).
Public transportation
Salt Lake City’s mass transit service is operated by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and includes a bus system, light rail, and a commuter rail line. Intercity services are provided by Amtrak and various intercity bus lines. These services are all interconnected at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (Salt Lake Central Station), west of the city center. The Brookings Institution in 2011 rated Salt Lake City’s mass transit system as the nation’s third-best at connecting people to jobs, providing access to 59% of the jobs in the valley.
Transit bus service
UTA’s bus system extends throughout the Wasatch Front from Brigham City in the north to Santaquin in the south and as far west as Grantsville, as well as east to Park City. UTA also operates routes to the ski resorts in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, as well as Sundance in Provo Canyon, during the ski season (typically November to April). Approximately 60,000 people ride the bus daily, although ridership has reportedly declined since TRAX was constructed.
Light rail
Main article: TRAX (light rail)
TRAX Green Line train at the Gallivan Plaza Station
The 44.8-mile (72.1 km) light rail system, called TRAX, has three lines.
The Blue Line, which opened in 1999 and was expanded in 2008, travels from the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (Salt Lake Central Station), south to Draper.
The Red Line, which originally opened in 2001 and was expanded in 2011, runs from the University of Utah, southwest through Salt Lake to Daybreak in South Jordan.
The Green Line, opened in 2011 and runs from the Salt Lake City International Airport to West Valley City (via Downtown Salt Lake City), with the extension to the airport having opened in April 2013.
The system has 50 stations, 23 of which are within the city limits. Daily ridership averaged 60,600 as of the fourth quarter of 2012, making TRAX the ninth most-ridden light rail system in the country.
Commuter rail
The commuter rail system, FrontRunner, opened April 26, 2008, extends from the Intermodal Hub north through Davis County to Pleasant View on the northern border of Weber County. Daily ridership on the line averages 7,800, as of the fourth quarter of 2012. An expansion called “FrontRunner South”, which extended FrontRunner to Provo in central Utah County, was completed in December 2012 as part of UTA’s FrontLines 2015 project. These extensions were made possible by a sales tax hike for road improvements, light rail, and commuter rail approved by voters on November 7, 2006. In addition, a $500 million letter of intent was signed by the Federal Transit Administration for all four of the planned TRAX extensions in addition to the FrontRunner extension to Provo. In March 2018, UTA announced FrontRunner would no longer run from Ogden to Pleasant View beginning in mid-August.
Intercity bus and rail services
Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Salt Lake City operating its California Zephyr daily between Chicago and Emeryville, California. Greyhound Lines serves Salt Lake City as well. Their nine daily buses provide service to Denver, Reno, Las Vegas, and Portland, Oregon. Both of these stations are at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub.
Air transportation
Salt Lake City International Airport is 4 miles (6.4 km) west of downtown, and falls entirely within the boundary of Salt Lake City. Delta Air Lines operates a hub at the airport, serving over 100 non-stop destinations in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, as well as Paris, London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. SkyWest Airlines operates its largest hub at the airport as Delta Connection, and serves 243 cities as Delta Connection and United Express. The airport is served by four UTA bus routes, and a UTA-operated light rail line (TRAX) opened services on April 14, 2013. A total of 22,029,488 passengers flew through Salt Lake City International Airport in 2007, representing a 2.19% increase over 2006. The airport ranks as the 21st busiest airport in the United States in total passengers, is consistently rated first in the country in on-time arrivals and departures, and has the second-lowest number of cancellations. The airport is undergoing a $3.6 billion redesign that is expected to be completed in 2024, resulting in a complete reworking of the terminals and parking areas.
There are two general aviation airports nearby, although they lie outside Salt Lake City:
South Valley Regional Airport in West Jordan
Skypark Airport in Woods Cross.
What is there to do in
We recommend checking out these popular tours when looking for something to do in Salt Lake City:
45 Minute Great Salt Lake Boat Tour
Salt Lake City Guided Bus Tour
Great Salt Lake Wildlife and Sunset Experience
Tabernacle Choir Performance + Salt Lake City Bus Tour