Four Arizonas: 

An Anthropological and Historical Interpretation of a Divided State

Arizona is often described as if it were a coherent cultural unit, but long-term residence across the state makes that assumption fall apart. Arizona is not a single cultural region. It is four. Southern Arizona, Central Arizona, Northern Arizona, and the sovereign Indigenous region formed by the Diné, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai, and Apache Nations. In addition, a fifth geographic zone exists north of the Grand Canyon, the Arizona Strip. While geographically part of Arizona, it is culturally and economically aligned with southern Utah.

My interpretation comes from direct experience. I grew up in Southern Arizona, spent time in Central Arizona, lived in Flagstaff in the north, and lived close to similar cultural systems in southern Utah. The distinctions are not conceptual. They are things a person feels while traveling, while grocery shopping, while listening to the languages being spoken around them, and while navigating communities that exist on entirely different timelines.

Southern Arizona and the Borderland Continuum

Southern Arizona contains the strongest sense of historical continuity in the state. Santa Cruz County, Nogales, Tubac, Cochise County, Yuma County, and the Tucson Basin form a cultural world shaped by Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and American histories layered one on top of the other.

I always feel this immediately when I return home. At gas stations on the I-19, the person at the counter will often greet me in Spanish before anything else. Spanish is not simply another language here. It is the day-to-day social language. Conversations unfold naturally in Spanish even when both speakers are bilingual. This alone distinguishes the border region from the rest of Arizona.

San Xavier del Bac, the Tucson Presidio, , Barrio Viejo, Armory Park, South Tucson, and the historic village of Tubac all reflect centuries of continuity. They are not frozen heritage districts. They anchor living communities.

During a recent visit I arrived at San Xavier on a festival day. The fry bread vendors had already sold out hours before the event ended. Waila music carried across the plaza. Families were dancing. Waila, sometimes called chicken scratch, is a musical tradition of the Tohono Oodham that grew from European polka introduced to northern Mexico in the nineteenth century. The Oodham adapted it, reshaped it, and turned it into something entirely local. The existence of an annual Waila Festival at one of the local casinos illustrates that this tradition is not a performance for tourists. It is a living practice.

Southern Arizona must also be understood as a homeland of the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Akimel O’odham, and other O’odham-related communities, many of which extend far beyond Tucson. The O’odham Nation is not simply part of the Tucson cultural sphere. It is a distinct world with its own history, language, and cultural continuity. The same is true of shared O’odham and Piipaash communities in central and southern Arizona. When discussing Southern Arizona, it is important to recognize these Indigenous nations as major cultural actors whose histories run deeper than those of the region’s colonial or American settlement layers.

Across Cochise County and Yuma County the same borderland orientation persists. Ranching families, O’odham communities, Mexican American households, and the physical presence of the Sonoran Desert form a coherent social world. It is a borderland first and an American region second.

Central Arizona and the Sunbelt Development Model

Central Arizona, dominated by Phoenix, follows a very different historical path. Even though the valley sits on top of the ancient Hohokam canal network, modern Phoenix does not reflect that lineage. Instead it is a product of twentieth century migration and development.

When I lived in the valley it felt engineered rather than organic. Master-planned suburbs, wide arterial roads, and a heavily gridded landscape shape daily life. The feeling of cultural continuity that defines Southern Arizona is mostly absent. Phoenix operates according to the Sunbelt model, where growth replaces memory and expansion outpaces identity.

Spanish is spoken widely. Indigenous presence is acknowledged. Yet neither forms the core public identity of the region. The dominant cultural script is suburban, mobile, future-oriented, and built around opportunity rather than continuity.

Central Arizona also contains several sovereign Indigenous nations that maintain independent cultural and political identities even while located inside the urban footprint of Phoenix. The Gila River Indian Community and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, both composed of O’odham and Piipaash peoples, remain distinct worlds in their own right. Their governance systems, land relationships, and cultural practices differ sharply from the suburban environment that surrounds them.

In fact, the physical separation of these nations from the Sunbelt city can be seen directly on the landscape. Federal reservation boundaries enforce a clear spatial division. When driving east from the suburban and urban built environments of Mesa or Scottsdale one crosses the reservation border and immediately enters rural agricultural lands, open space, and entirely different patterns of life. The transition reveals how Indigenous nations retain cultural autonomy not only politically but spatially as well. Their presence within the Phoenix region underscores that cultural identity in Arizona is not simply tied to geography but to sovereignty and continuity.

Furthermore, the towns along the Colorado River, such as Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City, and Parker, are often treated as their own subregion, yet they function culturally as Sunbelt cities aligned with Phoenix and Las Vegas. Their economies, development patterns, and social environments resemble small desert metros tied to tourism, boating culture, and the broader Southwest urban corridor.

Northern Arizona and the Mountain West Sphere

Northern Arizona belongs to a cultural system that is closer to Colorado or Utah than to anything south of the Mogollon Rim. When I lived in Flagstaff it felt like a Mountain West town that happened to be inside Arizona’s borders. The pine forests, elevation, cooler weather, and ski culture shape a social environment entirely separate from the desert regions.

Flagstaff is also an Indigenous border community. It is common to hear Diné, or Navajo, used casually in grocery stores and public spaces. The sound of Diné spoken in everyday life is one of the things that stays in your mind after living there. Indigenous languages play a visible role in the region’s public life in a way that they do not in central Arizona.

Tourism, mountain recreation, geology, and ranching all contribute to a regional identity that belongs to the Mountain West.

It is important to note that Prescott, the other Arizona city with a population over twenty thousand located north of the Mogollon Rim, also fits squarely into this Intermountain West cultural sphere. Prescott’s ranching heritage, pine forest environment, and high elevation climate produce a regional identity that aligns more closely with western Colorado and northern New Mexico than with Phoenix or Tucson. Its social rhythms, land use patterns, and public culture reflect the same Mountain West sensibility that defines Flagstaff.

The Sovereign Indigenous Region

The fourth region is the sovereign Indigenous world of northern and eastern Arizona, which operates independently from the rest of the state. These are not peripheral communities. They are cultural and political regions with their own governments, languages, schools, and ways of relating to the land.

The Diné Nation spans three states and functions through its own political system. Diné is a widely spoken language that can be heard in daily conversation in towns like Flagstaff. The Hopi Nation, smaller in area, contains villages that have been inhabited for thousands of years. Their location on three mesas has maintained a degree of cultural isolation that supports the survival of Hopi as a widely used language.

The Havasupai live in a canyon network south of the Grand Canyon. Their community is accessible mainly by foot, horse, or helicopter, which creates a form of isolation that is both ecological and cultural. Their language and traditions remain deeply connected to the canyon itself.

The Hualapai occupy a long stretch of land along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Although more accessible than the Havasupai, the Hualapai remain geographically separated from larger population centers. Their language, ceremonies, and land connections form a distinctive cultural system.

The Apache peoples, including the White Mountain, San Carlos, Tonto, and Cibecue Apache, form an additional component of this region. Their lands often lie in mountain forests rather than desert or canyon environments. Apache communities maintain living languages of the Athabaskan family, their own school systems, and their own governance structures. Their historical patterns differ from those of the Hopi or Havasupai because Apache societies were semi-nomadic and organized through kin-based bands rather than fixed villages. Even so, their cultural and political independence places them firmly within the Indigenous region.

It is also important to recognize that Arizona contains many additional tribal nations beyond these examples. The Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, the Tonto Apache Tribe, the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation, and others maintain their own histories and distinct identities. Their histories, languages, and communities form cultural regions that do not align neatly with the dominant social geographies of the state.

Indigenous cultural identity in Arizona is not simply a matter of terrain or isolation. It is political, historical, and linguistic, shaped by continuity that predates the Arizona territory by many centuries. Furthermore, approximately twenty-eight percent of all land within the boundaries of present-day Arizona is legally Indigenous land held in trust by the United States government on behalf of sovereign tribal nations. This means that more than a quarter of Arizona’s land area is not administered by the state of Arizona at all. This proportion is one of the highest in the country and reinforces the fact that the Indigenous region is not a marginal component of the state. It is an entire parallel land tenure system with distinct political authority, cultural continuity, and legal jurisdiction.

The Arizona Strip

Beyond the Grand Canyon lies the Arizona Strip, a region that is technically part of Arizona but functionally belongs to rural southern Utah. The Grand Canyon itself creates a complete natural barrier. There is no bridge connecting the Strip to the rest of the state for hundreds of miles. As a result, the Strip’s orientation is northward rather than southward.

The population of the Arizona Strip consists largely of Mormon communities, but not primarily members of the mainstream LDS Church. The region is dominated by fundamentalist Mormon groups that broke away from the main LDS Church in the early twentieth century after the church renounced polygamy. Towns such as Colorado City and Hildale are the most well-known examples.

It is important to note that Mormons in Utah constitute a distinct ethno-religious group. Their migration history, kinship structures, settlement patterns, and religious development produced a cohesive cultural identity that differs from mainstream American Protestantism. The communities in the Arizona Strip represent a branch of this tradition, shaped by both shared origins and the specific history of fundamentalist offshoots.

When I visited the region, the shift was immediate. The stores, the public speech, the land use patterns, and the overall atmosphere felt identical to the Utah side of the border. The region is socially, economically, and culturally tied to Utah rather than to Arizona.

Conclusion: A State Defined by Cultural Multiplicity

Arizona cannot be treated as a single cultural unit because its regions were shaped by different processes. Southern Arizona is the world of borderland continuity. Central Arizona is the world of Sunbelt expansion. Northern Arizona belongs to the Mountain West. The sovereign Indigenous region forms a separate cultural world with its own internal diversity. The Arizona Strip adds a final layer as a northern extension of Mormon frontier society.

Spanish dominates the social environment in the south. Diné, Hopi, Apache, and O’odham languages remain audible and alive in the north, east, and south. The designs of mission towns, master-planned suburbs, mountain communities, canyon settlements, and isolated Mormon enclaves all reveal distinct cultural systems.

Arizona is not one culture. It is many. They coexist inside a single set of borders, but they operate on different histories and different ways of being. Understanding Arizona requires recognizing that it has always contained multiple worlds at once.

Copyright © 2025 Ryan Badertscher. All rights reserved.