Moving From Out of State
Welcome to the Beehive State!
Housing
Utah County's Best of Everything
Demographics
Population (as of 2018): 622,213
Income & Poverty
- Median Household Income (as of 2017): $67,042
- Percent of Persons in Poverty: 10.5%
Religion
- Christian-Based: 73%
- Non-Christian-Based: 9%
- Not Affiliated: 18%
Age
- Percent under 5 years: 9.5%
- Percent under 18 years: 33.4%
- Percent 19-65 years: 49.4%
- Percent over 65 years: 7.7%
Race/Ethnicity
- Percent White: 82.1%
- Percent Black or African American: .8%
- Percent American India or Alaska Native: .8%
- Percent Asian: 1.8%
- Percent Pacific Islander: .9%
- Percent Hispanic or Latino: 12%
- Percent Other: 1.6%
Weather Averages
Month | High/Low(*F) | Rain |
January | 36/20 | 7 days |
February | 43/24 | 7 days |
March | 54/31 | 7 days |
April | 63/37 | 7 days |
May | 73/44 | 6 days |
June | 85/52 | 3 days |
July | 92/59 | 3 days |
August | 89/58 | 3 days |
September | 79/49 | 4 days |
October | 65/39 | 5 days |
November | 49/30 | 6 days |
December | 37/21 | 7 days |
Utah Jargon
Fry Sauce:
It’s like ketchup, but mixed with mayonnaise and sometimes pickle relish. Only in Utah. Get the recipe here.
The Grid System:
Inversion:
Jazz:
Lagoon:
Pioneer Day/24th of July:
Powder:
Slots:
Steel/Strawberry/Herriman/etc. Days:
While Utah is home to an array of people from a variety of backgrounds, over half of the population (62%) identifies as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of this, those not familiar with the faith may hear their colleagues or students use terms that are unfamiliar to them. To help with this, UVU’s Interfaith Student Council created a “Common Terminology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” document that can be found at the link below.
Common Terminology10 Utah Fun Facts
- The town of Levan (which is "navel" spelled backwards) is located in the middle of Utah. According to local lore, the town got its name because it sits at what would be the belly-button of the state.
- Utah is where you can find one of the heaviest organisms on earth. The Trembling Giant, or Pando, in the Fishlake National Forest, is made up of 47,000 genetically identical trees that share a single root system. It is also old, like really old -- more than 80,000 years old.
- The Bonneville Salt Flats comprises 30,000 acres of desolate, densely packed salt pan. The spot’s incredibly flat and smooth terrain makes it a popular destination for speed-seeking land racers. In 1964, a man named Norman Craig Breedlove broke the record for the longest continuous tire skid when he lost control of his jet-powered Spirit of America on the flats. The resulting skid marks stretched for 6 miles.
- Utahns eat twice the amount of lime green Jell-O as the rest of the U.S population. A popular way to consume the sweet treat in Utah is to add shredded carrots to the mix.
- The location of the first-ever KFC wasn’t in Kentucky, but 1,500 miles west in Salt Lake City, Utah. The iconic fried chicken recipe was first served in the cafe of Colonel Sanders' friend (and Utah native) Leon W. "Pete" Harman. While paying a visit to his friend’s home in Salt Lake City, Sanders was able to convince him to put the chicken on his menu at the Harman Cafe. Harman agreed, and when Sanders returned to Utah a few weeks later he found customers lined up and down the street waiting to taste his product. His success at the Utah location inspired him to continue licensing his chicken recipe to restaurants across the country.
- Utah’s Arches National Park is known for containing more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches. In the past, hikers who have discovered undocumented arches have been given the honor of getting to name them.
- It’s illegal to modify the weather in Utah -- at least without a permit. The Utah Administrative Code defines weather modification, or “cloud seeding" as, “all acts undertaken to artificially distribute or create nuclei in cloud masses for the purposes of altering precipitation, cloud forms, or other meteorological parameters."
- Bryce Canyon is one of five national parks in the state. The most unique feature of the park is its sprawling forests of Hoodoos, or thin pillars of rock shaped by years of erosion. Nineteenth-century Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, for whom the park is named, apparently described it as "a hell of a place to lose a cow."
- The Utahraptor, one of the largest raptors ever known to exist, was discovered in Utah and named after the state. At around 18 feet long, it would have more closely resembled the raptors depicted in "Jurassic Park" than its measly cousin the Velociraptor. It was almost named after the movie’s director, but the paleontologist who discovered it was unsuccessful when he proposed the idea to Spielberg in exchange for fieldwork funds.
- The official state cooking vessel of Utah is the Dutch oven. Like the ax and the rifle, these cast iron cooking pots would have been considered precious necessities by westbound pioneers coming to the state in the 19th century. Utah recognized the Dutch oven as an official state symbol in 1997.