Home > Imperial Valley

It covers Imperial County, California, the Coachella Valley, the city of Mexicali in Baja California, and environs. (In Mexico this area of the Baja California peninsula is referred to as the Valle de Mexicali.) The Imperial Valley lies, in part, between the Colorado River and the Salton Sea, the state of California's largest lake. Major population centers are El Centro and Brawley in California, and the twin border towns of Calexico and Mexicali.

Spanish explorer Melchior Díaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the area in 1540, and probably sent at least scouting parties into the valley proper.

Although this region is a desertThis is a list of North American deserts . There are four major desert biomes in North America, all located in Mexico or the southwestern United States. Among their notable features are the sky islands. Great Basin Desert Chihuahuan Desert Sonoran Desert with high temperatures and low rainfall of three inches (75 mm) per year, the economy is heavily based on agriculture due to irrigation, primarily from the All-American CanalThe All-American canal is a canal that feeds the entire Imperial Valley in California. It feeds 9 cities and over 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) of agriculture. this canal was finished in 1942, and is the only method in which the Imperial Valley gets water.. A vast sytem of canals, dams, and pipelines carry the water all over the valley, a system which forms the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID. The number of canal and pipeline branches number roughly over a hundred. Imported water and a long growing season allow two crop cycles each year, and the Imperial Valley is a major source of winter fruits and vegetables, cotton, and grain.

A secondary industry of the Imperial Valley region is tourism. Many visitors come to the area to visit the Salton Sea (California's largest inland lake, which serves as a dumpout point for the overflow of the IID canal system and ditch drainage) and the Glamis Sand Dunes . Another unique feature of the Imperial Valley is the New River, which flows from south to north, from Mexico to the Salton Sea. This attribute of the river is rare and is only seen on the NileThe Nile ( Arabic: an-nil , in Africa, is one of the two longest rivers on Earth. Whether the Nile is longer than South America's Amazon still remains the subject of much debate. This is, for the most part, due to two reasons: first, the lengths of rivers river in Africa.

Imperial Valley is crossed by Interstate 8Interstate 8 is an interstate highway in the southwestern United States. It runs from the southern edge of Mission Bay in San Diego, California, almost at the Pacific Ocean, to the junction with Interstate 10, just southeast of Casa Grande, Arizona. In Ca, and California State Highways 7California State Highway 86 is a north-south highway in the southeastern desert region of Southern California. It links the Coachella Valley starting in Indio where it is co-signed with California State Highway 111 for a short distance before splitting in, 78 , 86California State Highway 86 is a north-south highway in the southeastern desert region of Southern California. It links the Coachella Valley starting in Indio where it is co-signed with California State Highway 111 for a short distance before splitting in, 98 , 111California State Highway 111 is the main north/south state highway and retail corridor through the Coachella Valley, a part of the Colorado Desert in the southeastern corner of the state and famous as a resort destination. First proposed in the early 1930, and 115 .