Utah, USA
The Beehive State (45)
Capitol: Salt Lake City
Admitted into Union: January 4, 1896
State Flower: Sego lily
State Tree: Blue spruce
State Bird: California gull
State Animal: Rocky Mountain elk
State Insect: Honeybee
Population: 2.4 million

Busy little bees: Utahans are not exactly slouchers when there’s work to be done. Even their recreation sites demand a little sweat: wild expanses of redstone canyons beckon hikers and climbers, majestic peaks begged to scaled or skied, and rivers call to rafters. Need further proof of Utahans diligence? Utah’s state insect is the every-occupied honeybee, and their state emblem is the beehive, symbolizing thrift and industry. When you’re out shopping for bargains, running errands—or heading for an outdoor adventure—grab your Utah Sport Tote and get on it!

It’s the law: When driving in Utah, remember that birds have the right of way on all highways. And men, don’t get out of hand: a husband is responsible for every criminal act committed by his wife while she is in his presence.

What’s so great about it: The Great Salt Lake, 75 long and 35 miles wide, covers more than a million acres. It’s the landlocked remains of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which covered some 20,000 square miles of what is now Utah, Nevada and Idaho. The lake’s average depth is 20 feet. The four rivers that empty into the Lake deposit minerals that are trapped and concentrated. Extracting table salt and other chemicals from the lake are big business. The Great Salt Lake is saltier than the oceans, so no fish species can survive in it.

Ski Utah: The average snowfall in the mountains near Salt Lake City is 500 inches. Utah's unusually dry snow has earned it the reputation of having the world's greatest powder. It’s worth noting that the name "Utah" comes from the Native American "Ute" tribe and “means people of the mountains.”

National playgrounds: The federal government owns 65% of Utah’s land, including five national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef), seven national monuments (Cedar Breaks, Natural Bridges, Dinosaur, Rainbow Bridge, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Timpanogos Cave and Hovenweep), and two national recreation areas (Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon).

Water World: Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in North America, is fed by five rivers: the Green, Colorado, San Juan, Escalante, and Dirty Devil. A mecca for fishermen, houseboaters, photographers, divers, and other outdoor enthusiasts, narrow Lake Powell—186 miles long with nearly 2,000 miles of shoreline—was formed when the Colorado was dammed in Glen Canyon. Controversy over the construction of the dam in the 1950s and ’60s gave birth to the modern environmental movement.

Concrete behemoth: It took 5 million cubic yards of concrete to build the Glen Canyon Dam and power plant. That’s enough to build a four-lane highway from Chicago to Phoenix! It took three years—working night and day—to dump 400,000 24-ton buckets of wet concrete, resulting in a dam 710 feet high. Over 15 million gallons of water per minute can pass through the power plant's penstocks, generating more than 1.3 million kilowatts of electricity that serve some 1.5 million users in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Crockpot envy: Utah’s state cooking pot is the Dutch Oven.

Famous Utahans: Maude Adams, Paul D. Boyer, Avard Fairbanks, Philo Farnsworth, Barney Clark, Brigham Young, Butch Cassidy, Donny and Marie Osmond, Howard A. Jarvis, J. Willard Marriott, James Woods, Vernal John Gilbert, John M. Browning, Joseph Smith, Lee Greene Richards, Loretta Young, Robert Walker, Roseanne Barr, Virginia Sorensen.