Salt Lake City
capital city of the U.S. state of Utah and seat of Salt Lake County
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The population was 199,723 at the 2020 census, while the Salt Lake City metropolitan area has an estimated 1.3 million residents and is the 46th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. It is also part of the larger Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo combined statistical area, an urban corridor along a 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front with a population of approximately 2.8 million. It is one of the principal urban centers within the Great Basin, along with Reno, Nevada.
Salt Lake City was founded in 1847 by settlers led by Brigham Young who were seeking to escape persecution they had experienced while living farther east. The Mormon pioneers, as they would come to be known, entered a semi-arid valley and immediately began building an extensive irrigation network that could feed the population and foster future growth.
The street grid system is based on a standard compass grid plan, with the southeast corner of Temple Square serving as the origin of the Salt Lake meridian. Owing to its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, it was originally named Great Salt Lake City; the word "Great" was dropped from the city's name in 1868. Immigration of international members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), mining booms, and the construction of the first transcontinental railroad brought economic growth, and the city was nicknamed "The Crossroads of the West".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Salt Lake City” as capital city of the U.S. state of Utah and seat of Salt Lake County. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as capital city of the U.S. state of Utah and seat of Salt Lake County. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23337. VIAF identifies the subject as 122995809. The Library of Congress control number is n79059755. Authority coordinates are 40.750, -111.883. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1847 and 1868.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Salt Lake City”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Salt Lake City primary sources, Salt Lake City archive and Salt research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Salt Lake City”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Salt Lake City” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.