Sonoran Desert - geography.

Sonoran Desert - geography. Sonoran Desert, large, low, arid region lying primarily in southwestern Arizona, southeastern California, and northwestern Mexico (some definitions also include most of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula). The desert is bounded by the Mojave Desert on the north, the Arizona highlands region on the east, Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental on the south (see Sierra Madre), and the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean on the west. The Sonoran covers about 310,799 sq km (about 120,000 sq mi). The desert probably takes its name from the Tohono O'Odham (Papago) language term Sonota, which means "place of plants." While the Sonoran Desert accounts for only 20 percent of Arizona's land area, more than 80 percent of the state's population lives here, mainly in the rapidly growing areas of Phoenix and Tucson. Other cities within the region include Indio, Blythe, and El Centro in California; Yuma in Arizona; and Hermosillo, Guaymas, and Ciudad Obregón in Mexico. The desert ...