7.5 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.
Sonoran Desert
A subtropical hot desert of 260,000 square kilometres, home to the saguaro and the organ pipe cactus.
- Rank in Arizona
- #9of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 72.0 out of 100medium confidence
- Category
- Natural Landmark
The Sonoran Desert is a hot desert and ecoregion of North America covering 260,000 square kilometres across the Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur and the American states of Arizona and California. In phytogeography it forms the Sonoran floristic province of the Madrean region, part of the Holarctic realm. It holds a number of endemic plants and animals, among them the saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) and the organ pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi). It is distinct from the neighbouring Great Basin, Mojave and Chihuahuan deserts in providing subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall, where the Mojave has dry summers and cold winters, which produces a sharp contrast between aridity and moisture. It has been asserted, though the evidence is contested, to be the joint hottest desert on Earth.
Where it is
Sonoran Desert is a natural landmark near Ajo, 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 Sonoran Desert, 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) 
BASlyMan, CC BY-SA 4.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
22 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.
30 miles away
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.
30 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.
41 miles away
Ventana Cave
A southern Arizona archaeological site excavated from 1941, whose Pleistocene-age finds were redated and reinterpreted by later researchers.49 miles away
Aztec ghost town
A ghost town near Dateland, once a Southern Pacific Railroad station, now reduced to two standing buildings and foundations.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Natural Landmark
- Destination
- Ajo
- County
- Pima County
- State
- Arizona
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 72.0 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 88.8
- Significance score
- 58.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Coordinates
- 32.2600, -112.9261
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12