San Luis Valley

The San Luis Valley is a wide valley of the southern Rocky Mountains, which extends in a north-south direction for a distance of 180 km between the San Juan Mountains in the west and the Sangre de Cristo Range to the south. Thus, it ranges from southern Colorado to northern New Mexico. It reaches a width of up to 90 km and has a total area of ​​over 21,000 square kilometers, the world's largest alpine valley basin. Geologically it is a grave breach of the easternmost ditch the Basin and Range region here. The valley is situated at an average altitude of 2,300 meters, while the mountains surrounding the valley, reaching a height of over 4000 meters.

In the eastern part of the San Luis Valley in front of the mountains of the Sangre de Cristo Range drifts by large sand dunes ( Great Sand Dunes ) are formed, which have been declared to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in 2004 and are one of the biggest attractions of Colorado. On the west side flows from the San Juan Mountains to the Rio Grande to the San Luis Valley and this is with the extending south to New Mexico the river is also the only body of water that leaves the valley again.

The San Luis Valley was up to their final expulsion of the mid-1890s, the home of the Ute Indians, who have an ever-growing crowd of Hispanic settlers were faced with from about the year 1850, mainly settled in the basin of the Rio Grande and there living from livestock and agriculture. At the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Range was established in the summer of 1851 with San Luis the first permanent and therefore now the oldest settlement of present-day Colorado. However, the valley was sparsely populated until today; the few notable places include the heavily Mexican influenced towns Alamosa, Monte Vista and Center in the center of the valley. There are particular potatoes, garden salad and barley to the most important agricultural products.

Today the valley in north-south direction from U.S. Highway 285 and east-west direction through the U.S. 160 in the north, and is the U.S. 64 opened in the south. The economy is dominated by agriculture, which is operated primarily in the form of irrigation farming with large round - irrigation systems with 400 m diameter. In addition, tourism is a source of income, mainly in the environment of the National Park.

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