Welcome to Phoenix: A Desert City With Mountains in Its Middle

Phoenix tends to surprise people twice. The first surprise is how much ground it covers. The second is how close the open desert stays, even in the middle of all that city.

A big city, measured honestly

Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the United States, home to roughly 1.7 million people according to the city's planning department, working from July 2024 Census estimates. Its growth has been quick. In 1950 Phoenix covered about 17 square miles and ranked 99th among American cities; today it spreads across more than 500 square miles. That scale shapes daily life. People tend to measure trips in minutes rather than miles, and "across town" can mean a real drive.

Mountains inside the city limits

What makes the size livable is the land the city chose to keep wild. Phoenix manages more than 41,000 acres of desert parks and mountain preserves, crossed by over 200 miles of trails. South Mountain Park/Preserve alone covers more than 16,000 acres spread over three small ranges, and the city has owned its core since 1924. Camelback Mountain, reached from the Echo Canyon and Cholla trailheads, and 2,608-foot Piestewa Peak give central Phoenix its skyline of rock. In the north, the Sonoran Preserve adds more than 9,600 acres and 36 miles of trail.

The desert is the other half of the setting. The Desert Botanical Garden, started in 1939 by a group of local desert advocates and set among the red Papago Buttes, keeps a living collection of more than 4,800 species. It makes a good primer before you start naming the plants you pass on the trail.

The seasons, the way locals live them

Newcomers learn the calendar quickly. Winter is the reward: by the National Weather Service's 1991 to 2020 normals, the average high at Sky Harbor is about 66 degrees in December and 68 in January, which is why patios, hikes and outdoor gatherings fill the cooler months. Summer is the test. July's normal high is about 106.5 degrees, and in 2023 the city logged 31 straight days at 110 or hotter.

Residents adjust rather than hide. Hikes move toward sunrise and errands slide toward evening. City code keeps dogs off Phoenix trails when it tops 100 degrees, and trail restrictions can apply during extreme heat warnings. From June 15 to September 30 comes the official monsoon season, with its chance of sudden storms and towering walls of dust; the fixed dates were adopted in 2008 so that people would take the season's hazards seriously. And there is one thing you will never have to adjust: Arizona tried daylight saving time in 1967, then went back to standard time and has stayed there, so the clocks don't change (the Navajo Nation, in the state's northeast, is the exception).

One Valley, many cities

People here talk about "the Valley" as often as they talk about Phoenix. Visit Phoenix describes Greater Phoenix as one destination that takes in Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Peoria and the communities around them, and residents cross those city lines constantly for work, school and dinner. Each spring the region becomes a baseball town, too: the Cactus League, founded in 1947, brings 15 Major League teams to 10 ballparks around the Valley for spring training.

Neighborhoods with their own personalities

Within Phoenix, the feel can change from one street to the next. The city protects 36 residential historic districts, among them Roosevelt, Coronado, F.Q. Story, Willo and Encanto-Palmcroft, where older homes and mature trees hint at the city that existed before its postwar growth. Nearby, Encanto Park sets aside 222 acres of green in the heart of town.

Downtown, the Roosevelt Row and Historic Grand Avenue arts districts host First Friday on the first Friday of every month. The free, all-ages art walk began in the mid-1990s, when the nonprofit Artlink started it with a handful of participants; it now draws thousands of people across dozens of blocks.

How weekends tend to go

A cool-season weekend here often starts on a trail, wanders through a museum and ends outdoors with friends. The Heard Museum, which opened in 1929 around the collection of Dwight and Maie Heard, is devoted to the work of American Indian artists, and each March its guild's Indian Fair and Market gathers more than 600 Native artists. Papago Park, with its red buttes and a short climb to Hole-in-the-Rock, is an easy first desert hike. And some of the best plans are the simplest: find the independent coffee shop or neighborhood restaurant closest to your new front door, and ask the regulars where they like to go.

Settling in

Give Phoenix a full year before you decide what you think. The first winter wins most people over, and the first summer teaches the rhythms that make the rest of the year so good. Through all of it the mountains stay on the horizon, a steady reminder that the desert was here first, and that it is still close enough to visit before breakfast.