Santa Rita Mountains

Rank in Arizona: #90of 727 ranked
Overall score: Score 51.8 out of 100medium confidence
Category: Natural Landmark

The Santa Rita Mountains lie about 40 miles south-east of Tucson and extend 26 miles from north to south before trending south-east, where they merge into the Patagonia Mountains. The highest point in the range, and the highest in the Tucson area, is Mount Wrightson, at 9,453 feet. The range contains Madera Canyon, one of the world's principal birding areas, and the Smithsonian Institution's Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory stands on Mount Hopkins. It is one of the Madrean sky islands and lies mostly within the Coronado National Forest; before 1908 the mountains were the principal component of the Santa Rita National Forest, which was combined with other small forest tracts to form the Coronado. Much of the range falls within the Mount Wrightson Wilderness. On the western side of the northern Santa Ritas a large cliff face of white marble, visible from Green Valley and Sahuarita, reminded early Spanish missionaries of Saint Rita of Cascia, an Italian nun often depicted with a small wound on her forehead, and the range was named after her. The mountains were severely burned in July 2005 by the Florida Fire.

Where it is

Santa Rita Mountains is a natural landmark near Madera Canyon, in Santa Cruz 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 Rita 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

$1LENCE D00600D, CC BY-SA 3.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Public domain · source(opens in a new tab)

Nearby attractions

2.7 miles away
Mount Wrightson
A 9,456-foot peak in the Santa Rita Mountains within the Coronado National Forest, named for the miner William Wrightson.
Natural Landmark
3.8 miles away
Madera Canyon
A canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains south-east of Tucson, within the Coronado National Forest and known for its migrating birds.
Canyon
5.4 miles away
VERITAS
A ground-based gamma-ray observatory of four 12-metre reflectors at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, completed in 2007.
Observatory
5.4 miles away
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's largest field station, on the summit of Mount Hopkins near Amado.
Observatory
6.6 miles away
Onyx Cave
A half-mile solutional cave in Permian limestone in the Santa Rita Mountains, designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974.
Natural Landmark
9.0 miles away
Kentucky Camp
A ghost town and former mining camp near Sonoita, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1995 and maintained by the US Forest Service.
Historic Site