Quick Facts

Capital City:  Salt Lake City
Population:  2,550,063
Top Industry:  Tourism
Total Area:  36,418 square miles

Trivia

• Utah was home to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
• The Sundance Film Festival takes place every year in Park City, Utah, drawing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
• Utah is known as the “Crossroads of the West.”

 Utah Roadways

I-15 runs north and south through the entire state of Utah.  The majority of Utah’s most populated cities, including the Salt Lake City metro area, the Provo-Orem area, and St. George in southern Utah, have exits off I-15. This interstate, through Salt Lake and Utah counties is, for the most part, a four-lane Interstate, with four lanes of traffic traveling both north and south bound. One of the four lanes is typically a carpool lane. If you are driving an 18-wheeler in Utah, you will most likely spend quite a bit of time driving on I-15.

I-80 enters eastern Utah near Evanston, Wyoming, and continues through the northern part of the state, where it intersects with I-15.  The interstate then runs along the southern part of the Great Salt Lake and through Utah’s desert and into Nevada.

I-70 begins in south-central Utah as an exit off I-15. This interstate travels through Fishlake National Forest to Green River, Utah. Exit 180 will take you to Moab, Utah. I-70 is often used by tourists who are interested in visiting Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks. I-70 continues into Colorado and heads east all the way to Baltimore, Maryland.

US-6 connects to I-70 near Green River, Utah, and heads northwest through Price and Soldier Summit until it meets with I-15 near Spanish Fork in central Utah. US-6, then continues into the west desert, passing through many of Utah’s old mining towns, including Delta and Eureka.

The Utah Economy

Arguably, Utah’s most important industry is tourism.  The winter season brings thousands and thousand of tourists to ski and snowboard on some of the best snow in the world.  In addition, the state’s five national parks and numerous other state parks also draw large crowds.  Zion National Park, located in southern Utah, attracts more than 5 million tourists each and every year.

Coal mines are located in Carbon and Emery Counties. There are oil fields in the eastern part of the state, near Vernal. Copper is mined at the Bingham Canyon Mine in Salt Lake County. Utah also relies on the high tech and tourism industries.