Colorado is a state in the western United States. Itscapital and largest city isDenver. Other large cities areColorado Springs andAurora. Colorado became the 38thstate admitted to the union on August 1, 1876.
Native Americans were the first people to live in Colorado. Some important Colorado Native American peoples are the Navajo, Ute, and Cheyenne-Arapahoe Indians. The state was named after theColorado River by Spanish explorers. US Army officer andamateur explorerZebulon Pike was recruited by the United States government in 1806 to find the source of theMississippi River and to check out Spanish settlements inNew Mexico.[6] Even though his recorded location for the source of the Mississippi was wrong and he allegedly got lost in his expedition, he did explore much of what would become theAmerican Southwest. When he reached what is nowColorado Springs, he named a mountain after himself,Pikes Peak, which remains a symbol for the city as well as the state to this day.
Colorado has a long history of mining and digging forgold. It is the place where thePike's Peak Gold Rush took place. When gold in California was becoming harder and harder to find, people came to Colorado in large numbers when gold was discovered there in 1859, ten years after theCalifornia Gold Rush began. Many mining camps set up in Colorado would later become cities, such as Denver City and Boulder City. The motto for the gold rush was "Pike's Peak or Bust".
The State of Colorado is shaped like arectangle. The borders arelatitude andlongitude lines. The four borders are at 37°N, 41°N, 102°03'W, and 109°03'W. (The east and west borders are 25°W and 32°W from the Washington Meridian.) Colorado,Wyoming, andUtah are the only three U.S. states that have only lines of latitude and longitude forboundaries and that have no natural borders. When governmentsurveyors made the border markers for the "Territory of Colorado", minor surveying mistakes made many smallkinks along the borders, most seen along the border with the "Territory of Utah."
The tip ofMount Elbert at 14,440feet (4,401m)elevation in Lake County is the state's highest point and the highest point in the entireRocky Mountains. Colorado has more than 100mountain peaks that reach over 4,000meters (13,123ft) in height. Colorado is the only U.S. state that liesentirely above 1,000meters (3,281ft) in height. Colorado has the highest average elevation of any state at 6,800ft.[7] It bordersNew Mexico,Arizona,Utah,Oklahoma,Kansas,Nebraska, andWyoming.
The land area of Colorado is roughly the same size as New Zealand.[8]
The weather and temperatures in Colorado are quite differentcompared to most of the United States. In most other states, the southern part is warmer than the northern part, southern Colorado is not noticeably warmer than northern Colorado. Mountains and surroundingvalleys greatlyaffectlocal climate. As a normal rule, with anincrease in height comes adecrease intemperature and an increase in rain. TheRocky Mountains on the west have a very differentclimate than theGreat Plains on the east. Between these two areas is a smaller mountain range known as "the Foothills".
The state's largest city, andcapital, isDenver. The "Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area", is home to 2,927,911 people, it has more than two-thirds of the state's population.
As of 2005, Colorado has anestimated population of 4,665,177, which is anincrease of 63,356, or 1.4%, from the last year and an increase of 363,162, or 8.4%, since the year 2000. This has a natural increase since the last census of 205,321 people (that is 353,091 births minus 147,770 deaths) and an increase because ofmigration of 159,957 people into the state.Immigration from outside the United States makes a net increase of 112,217 people, and migration within the country made a net increase of 47,740 people.
On January 1, 2014 Colorado became the first state to makemarijuana legal.[9] In the first week of 2014, $5 million of marijuana was sold.[10] The marijuana industry was expected to add $359 million to Colorado's economy by the end of 2014.[11]
