Zion National Park

Zion National Park covers 229 square miles of southwestern Utah, where the Virgin River and its tributaries have carved a labyrinth of deep, narrow canyons through layers of Navajo Sandstone. The Zion Canyon gorge reaches depths of nearly 2,000 feet, its sheer walls of cream and vermillion sandstone rising on either side of the river. The park spans an elevation range from 3,666 feet at Coalpits Wash to 8,726 feet at Horse Ranch Mountain, crossing five distinct life zones in the process.

This map traces the extraordinary vertical relief that defines Zion. The contour lines stack tightly along the canyon walls where cliffs drop hundreds of feet in near-vertical faces, then spread apart across the mesa tops and plateaus above. The Great White Throne, Angels Landing, and the towering walls of the Narrows all emerge as dense compressions of line, while the broad Kolob Terrace to the northwest opens into gentler terrain. It is a landscape carved by water into stone, and the map reads as a record of that relentless process.