ToponymicaUS City Name Origins
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Geographic/Botanical

Salt Lake City

Utah (UT)est. 1847pop. 209,593/sawlt layk SIT-ee/

The meaning

“City by the great salt lake”

How it got the name

Brigham Young's pioneers named their settlement Great Salt Lake City, purely descriptive, in 1847. The legislature dropped 'Great' in 1868 to shorten it. The lake itself is the remnant of the Ice Age Lake Bonneville, and its salinity is what made the name obvious.

Former names

  1. Great Salt Lake City
  2. Salt Lake City