The Southwest, also called the southwestern United States or the American Southwest, is made up of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Nevada , Utah, and southwestern Colorado. Actually, some people consider western Texas, Oklahoma, and even part of southern California to be part of the Southwest, so there is no absolute definition. The whole region has a warmer climate than that of the northern states and the air is a lot drier than it is in the eastern states, afterall, the Southwest includes a lot of desert areas. Aditionally, there are flat-topped mesas, canyons, mountains and high valleys. The population in the Southwest is less dense than elsewhere and even the cities have a relatively low population density. You will find many Spanish Americans, Mexican Americans and Native Americans living throughout the Southwest, and this makes the area more ethnically varied than it is in the neighboring states.

           Most of the Navajo people live on the main Navajo reservation that is considered by far the largest Native North American reservation in the United States. This is situated where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah all meet at a place called Four Corners. Most of the reservation, which is approximately 25,000 square miles, lies in Arizona and contains mountains that in some places are as high as 10,000 feet. But there are also deep canyons that cut through the plateau. There is very little rainfall here which makes farming difficult. Winters are really cold with biting winds and summers are really hot!

           The Pueblo Indians are descended from the Anasazi Indians who built the original large pueblo dwellings in the Southwest. This was a long time ago when Indians first settled and became skilled farmers. The Hopi, a part of the Pueblo nation, settled on Black Mesa in Oraibi, Arizona, and have lived there continuously for thousands of years, right up to the present. The Zuni, a Pueblo people whose customs and beliefs are similar to those of the Hopi, settled in what is now New Mexico. Pueblos are built with rows of connected houses, several stories high, and that is why Pueblo people are sometimes called the first "apartment dwellers."

           Other Native Americans who settled in the Southwest include the Apaches, the Pima, and the Papago.