IMPERIAL VALLEY (CALIFORNIA)

A valley, southeast California, bounded by the Salton Sea on the north, the Chocolate Mountains on the east, and the desert ranges of the Santa Rosa and Vallecito mountains on the west. The valley, crossed by the border between the United States and Mexico, is part of a larger valley that extends south into Mexico; the Mexican section is called Mexicali Valley. Lying below sea level, and formerly an arid desert, the valley is now one of the richest agricultural areas in the world and the largest year-round irrigated agricultural area in North America as a result of irrigation by waters of the Colorado River. The first waters from the Colorado were brought in through the Imperial Canal, opened in 1901. The same source was tapped for the All-American Canal, completed in 1940 as part of the Hoover Dam irrigation system built by the U.S. government. This canal, which is 80 miles (129 kilometers) long and 200 feet (61 meters) wide, is the largest irrigation canal in the U.S. and supplies most of the water for the approximately 404,700 irrigated hectares (about 1 million acres, or 1,562 square miles) of land in the Imperial Valley.