Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, renowned for its immense size and layered, colorful rock formations that reveal nearly two billion years of geological history.
Peel back its colored rock layers and you're reading nearly two billion years of Earth's history, laid down long before the canyon itself existed to reveal them.
Carved by Water and Time
The canyon stretches approximately 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and plunges to depths exceeding a mile (6,000 feet) in places. The Colorado River began carving the canyon an estimated 5 to 6 million years ago, gradually cutting through layer after layer of rock as the surrounding Colorado Plateau slowly uplifted.
A Record of Earth's History
The canyon's exposed rock layers provide geologists with an extraordinarily rare and continuous record of Earth's geological history, with the oldest rocks at the canyon's base dating back nearly 1.8 billion years. Each distinct colored band visible in the canyon walls represents a different geological period, offering scientists a window into ancient seas, deserts, and ecosystems that existed long before dinosaurs.
A Homeland for Indigenous Peoples
The Grand Canyon region has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Today, the Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo, and Hopi nations, among others, maintain deep cultural and spiritual ties to the canyon, with some communities continuing to live within or adjacent to it, including the Havasupai village located deep within a side canyon.
Protection and Legacy
The Grand Canyon was established as a U.S. National Park in 1919, following earlier protections as a national monument championed by President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously urged Americans to "leave it as it is." It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and remains one of the most visited and iconic natural landmarks in the world.
