Salt Lake City Convention and Visitors Bureau 90 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1406 (801) 521-2822 Population 159936 Time Zone Mountain Latitude/Longitude 40.78° /-111.9°

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Attractions

This beautiful city is the state capital and headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). From here, it's a very short drive to winter skiing in the Wasatch Mountains and summertime recreation on the Great Salt Lake.

At the historic heart of the city, ten-acre Temple Square is the site of many important Mormon edifices. While the Mormon Temple, with its soaring spires topped by the figure of the Angel Moroni, is not open to the general public, visitors may enter the Tabernacle to hear music sung by the renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Also on Temple Square are the Museum of Church History and Art and the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, a former hotel where visitors can watch a film on the pioneering efforts of the early Mormons. The Family History Library is another popular destination for those wishing to uncover the particulars of their ancestry. Nearby, the Beehive House, a former residence of church founder Brigham Young, is furnished as it would have been during pioneer days.

Salt Lake City also has notable monuments to its rugged past, such as the Seagull Monument built to commemorate the birds that saved Mormon wheat from an army of locusts in 1848, and the bronze figure of Brigham Young, who lies buried in a quiet park a short walk from the Beehive House.

Overlooking downtown, the imposing State Capitol occupies 40 acres of parklike grounds. The building, with its huge copper-covered dome, was closed to tours in 2004 for an extended period of renovation and restoration. Across from the capitol, the Pioneer Memorial Museum displays many of the possessions and personal items of the early pioneers, including dolls, handmade quilts, textiles, and furniture. The museum also has a fine collection of antique vehicles and farm machinery, housed in a nearby carriage house.

The Clark Planetarium presents star and laser light shows in the Hansen Dome Theatre, special-effects and large-format nature films in the multi-story ATK IMAX Theatre, plus a wide range of interactive and static exhibits on astronomy and space exploration. White rhinos, red pandas, and black bears are among the hundreds of animals living in simulated natural surroundings at Utah's Hogle Zoo. Closer to downtown, families delight in the quiet atmosphere of Liberty Park, where kids can dawdle in the amusement area in summertime and everyone will enjoy a stroll through Tracy Aviary.

With its very busy arts scene, Salt Lake City enjoys multiple modern and historic performance spaces. Among them are Abravanel Hall, home of the Utah Symphony, the landmark Capitol Theater, now a performing arts center for ballet, modern dance, and opera, and Rose Wagner Center, which offers three different performance spaces for emerging theatre and dance companies. The Salt Lake Art Center presents changing exhibits of works and installations by contemporary artists. All are located near the Salt Palace, the city's convention center, which underwent a major expansion in 2004 to encompass more than 500,000 square feet of exhibit space.

The campus of the University of Utah, gracing the foothills on the city's northeast side, offers several worthwhile stops, including a museum of natural history, a museum of fine arts, and the Red Butte Garden and Arboretum.

For sporting events and major music concerts, check out Energy Solutions Arena (formerly the Delta Center), home of Utah Jazz basketball and Utah Blaze arena football. At downtown's Franklin Covey Field, baseball fans can take in the exploits of the Salt Lake Bees, Pacific Coast League triple-A affiliates of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. MLS professional soccer is played by Real Salt Lake at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the university campus. A few minutes' drive south, the Utah Grizzlies play ECHL hockey at the E Center in West Valley City.

You can do a lot of shopping without a lot of walking here. Try the ZCMI Center, a large covered shopping mall near Temple Square, and its similar neighbor across Main Street, Crossroads Plaza. Trolley Square is a pleasant marketplace housed within a former trolley barn and sometimes within the converted trolley cars themselves.

In Salt Lake City, beautiful mountain and desert scenery is never far away. Visit the marina at Great Salt Lake State Park for sailing, plan an extended excursion into the wilderness of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, or simply get in your car and find a scenic drive like the ones just a few miles outside the city that ascend through Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood canyons.

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