Santa Catalina Mountains

Rank in Arizona: #95of 727 ranked
Overall score: Score 51.5 out of 100medium confidence
Category: Natural Landmark

The Santa Catalina Mountains, commonly called the Catalinas, lie north and north-east of Tucson, on the city's northern perimeter. They are the most prominent range in the Tucson area and have the highest average elevation; the highest point is Mount Lemmon, at 9,157 feet, which receives 18 inches of precipitation a year. The 27-mile Catalina Highway winds through the range up to the village of Summerhaven, near Mount Lemmon. Known to the Tohono O'odham Nation as Babad Do'ag, the range was named in 1697 by the Italian Jesuit Eusebio Francisco Kino after Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of Kino's oldest sister. The Catalinas form the Santa Catalina Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest and include the Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area; they are one of the Madrean sky islands. The Catalina Sky Survey, on Mount Lemmon, searches for comets and asteroids and for near-Earth objects that may pose a threat of impact. Sabino Canyon, with its streams and perennial pools, and Catalina State Park, in the western foothills, are among the principal recreation areas, and Mount Lemmon Ski Valley is the southernmost ski destination in the United States.

Where it is

Santa Catalina Mountains is a natural landmark near Santa Catalina Mountains, in Pima 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 Santa Catalina Mountains, 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

Record last verified 2026-08-12.

More photographs

Nicholas Hartmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab)

Nearby attractions

0.1 miles away
Mount Lemmon Observatory
A University of Arizona observatory on Mount Lemmon, 28 kilometres north-east of Tucson in the Coronado National Forest.
Observatory
0.5 miles away
Mount Lemmon Ski Valley
The southernmost ski area in the continental United States, on Mount Lemmon north of Tucson at 9,157 feet.
Landmark
4.7 miles away
Mount Bigelow
A peak in the Santa Catalina Mountains, home to Catalina Station and the University of Arizona's 61-inch Kuiper Telescope.
Natural Landmark
6.8 miles away
Catalina State Park
Foothills and canyons at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, holding nearly 5,000 saguaros.
State Park
7.3 miles away
Peppersauce Cave
A limestone cave with about a mile of mapped passages in the Santa Catalina Mountains south of Oracle, visited by some 23,000 people a year.
Natural Landmark
9.4 miles away
Sabino Canyon
A canyon in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, with waterfalls along Sabino Creek and trails through the desert.
Canyon