17 miles away
El Camino Del Diablo
A 250-mile historic road across the Sonoran Desert in Pima and Yuma counties, listed on the National Register in 1978.
Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge
An 860,010-acre refuge along the Mexican border, established in 1939 for desert bighorn sheep and the third largest in the lower 48 states.
- Rank in Arizona
- #343of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 40.4 out of 100medium confidence
- Category
- Natural Landmark
Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is in south-western Arizona, along 56 miles of the border with Mexico. It is bordered to the north and west by the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, to the south by Mexico's El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, to the north-east by the town of Ajo and to the south-east by Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It lies within the Yuma Desert, a lower-elevation section of the Sonoran Desert, and was originally established in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep; it is home to more than 275 species of animals and nearly 400 species of plants. Its total area of 860,010 acres, greater than that of the state of Rhode Island, makes it the third largest national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states. It is administered from a small headquarters building in Ajo. The area is an active corridor for illegal entry and smuggling into the United States, and since 2017 the remains of at least forty people who died crossing it, from lack of water or extreme temperatures, have been found there.
Where it is
Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is a natural landmark near Ajo, in Yuma County. It is one of the natural landmarks in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.
How this ranking was reached
No official visitor count is published for Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
- Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
- County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
- Official site: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/cabeza_prieta(opens in a new tab)
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
More photographs
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab) 
PhillipC, CC BY 2.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
30 miles away
Sonoran Desert
A subtropical hot desert of 260,000 square kilometres, home to the saguaro and the organ pipe cactus.
33 miles away
New Cornelia mine
An inactive open-pit copper mine at Ajo, a mile and a half across and 1,100 feet deep, with tailings often called the largest US dam.35 miles away
Aztec ghost town
A ghost town near Dateland, once a Southern Pacific Railroad station, now reduced to two standing buildings and foundations.
43 miles away
Sears Point
Sears Point, near Dateland, Arizona, has hundreds of petroglyphs on basalt outcrops above the Gila River, managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
45 miles away
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
A UNESCO biosphere reserve on the Mexican border, and one of the few places organ pipe cactus grows wild in the US.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Natural Landmark
- Destination
- Ajo
- County
- Yuma County
- State
- Arizona
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 40.4 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 19.3
- Significance score
- 58.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Official website
- fws.gov(opens in a new tab)
- Coordinates
- 32.3167, -113.4333
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12