It also borders Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, and Nevada to the west. In comparison to all the U. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two regions: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which includes the state capital, Salt Lake City , and is home to roughly two-thirds of the population; and Washington County in the southwest, which has approximately , residents.
Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups , such as the ancient Puebloans , the Navajo, and the Ute. The first Europeans to arrive β in the midth century β were the Spanish. Because of the region's challenging geography and harsh climate, it only became a peripheral part of New Spain and later of Mexico.
In , after the MexicanβAmerican War , the region was annexed by the U. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state: in , after it agreed to outlaw polygamy, it was admitted as the 45th state. People from Utah are known as Utahns. Utah has a highly diversified economy , with major sectors including transportation, education , information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing , and tourism. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from to Over time and influenced by climate change , droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, [ 18 ] putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.
The name Utah derives from the name of the Ute tribe , meaning 'people of the mountains'. The meaning of Utes as 'the mountain people' has been attributed to the neighboring Pueblo Indians , [ 21 ] as well as to the Apache word Yuttahih , which means 'one that is higher up' or 'those that are higher up'. Thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Ancestral Puebloans and the Fremont people lived in what is now known as Utah, some of which spoke languages of the Uto-Aztecan group.
Ancestral Pueblo peoples built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century.
