Death Valley
Death Valley (Panamint: Tümpisa [tɨmbiʃa]) is a desert valley in Eastern California, United States, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the hottest place on Earth during summer.
Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. It is 84.6 miles (136.2 km) east-southeast of Mount Whitney – the highest point in the contiguous United States, with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). On the afternoon hours of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, which stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. However, this reading and several others taken in that period are disputed by some modern experts.
Lying mostly in Inyo County, California, near the border of California and Nevada, in the Great Basin, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley constitutes much of Death Valley National Park and is the principal feature of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve. It runs from north to south between the Amargosa Range on the east and the Panamint Range on the west. The Grapevine Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 sq mi (7,800 km2). The highest point in Death Valley National Park is Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Range, which has an elevation of 11,043 feet (3,366 m).
A group of European-American pioneers got lost in the valley in the winter of 1849–1850, while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, giving Death Valley its grim name. Although only one of the group members died there, they all assumed that the valley would be their grave. Death Valley is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans, formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone, who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium.
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