ch9 Dever Colorado

:The Mile High City:

Denver is centrally located and lies in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain region. Located on high plains at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, Denver has a sunny, cool, dry climate. The sun shines 300 days a year and the usually mild climate and nearby Rocky Mountain playground have made tourism one of the Mile High City's economic mainstays. With a lower cost of living compared to most major cities, exemplary health care and world class medical research facilities, massive rapid transit expansion plans, and abundant cultural and recreational opportunities, Denver is one of the nation's best cities.

The Rocky Mountains & Beer

The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. The major countries regions that are contain the mountains also include: Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Alberta, and Idaho. They were formed anywhere from 80 million to 55 million years ago by the Laramide orogeny. Since then, erosion by massive glaciers and water have carved the mountains into unbelievable valleys and peaks.

What could be better then then beautiful mountains, views, and landscapes? You guessed it...

BEER

Colorado is home to the largest single brewery facility in the world. The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth largest brewing company.

...you can see from the picture, the size of the brewery.

Manufacturing

The Product Development and Manufacturing (PDM) Core offers product translational services to academic, government, and industry partners for the development and manufacture of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics used in preclinical animal studies and phase I and II human clinical trials. The PDM Core's product development department provides prelim product characterization and formulation, The PDM Core’s quality system, maintained by the Quality Control and Quality Assurance Departments, provides testing, validation, and auditing for GLP and cGMP-compliant projects, as required by the Code of Federal Regulations. Product release testing of manufactured products, including safety, stability, purity, potency, identity, and sterility testing, is performed as per the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), where applicable. Procedural validation is performed by documentation review and systematic inspections. Auditing services for GLP projects are available for outside projects.

Megalopolis

Huge areas of settlements can be found in the Front Range that goes from Denver to Casper, Wyoming and then down into Santa Fe, New Mexico that connect along interstate 25. However, it is not part of eastern Megalopolis. This region cannot contend with the eastern Megalopolis, but population is supposed to rise due to its high metropolitan setup.

-With retail businesses having a projected 5 percent increase in 2011 and the median home prices increasing around 2 percent, the recession did not hit Denver the hardest according to the metro Denver economist.

-People see potential as Denver being a strong economic city, so tons of development is going into the cities business infrastructure. Other pull factors include the safety of living and the cities environmental background that include denying the right to have the Olympics in 1967 because of environmental issues.

-Another thing that helps make Denver such a largely populated region is the fact they have a lot of sports teams that include the Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, Denver Broncos and the Colorado Avalanche.

-Like every city in the country, sprawl is happening at a very rapid pace into mountains and nearby forest.

Human Activity

The first European settlement in Colorado was made by the Spaniard Francisco Escalante in 1776. The man who first stepped foot onto the land was believed to have been James Pursley, a fur trader in 1804. Part of Colorado was turned into the United States control as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. Some of it was then added to Texas after it won independence from Mexico in 1836. And the Western portion was claimed by Mexico in 1848. In 1858, the gold hunting began in Colorado and this brought a movement to form a territorial government. this became complicated due to the fact that parts of the territory was claimed by Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, and Nebraska. however, congress gathered parts of all the states together and soon the territory was called Colorado and achieved statehood in 1876.

Religion in Colorado began with the Spanish explorers who had a claim to the land, but who did not settle, were Roman Catholic, but the first American settlers were mainly Methodists, Episcopalians, and Lutherans. Roman Catholics make up the biggest group in the state with 752,505 members. There were about 72,000 members in the Jewish community in 2000. That same year there were about 72 Buddhist, 7 Hundu, and 12 Muslim congregations in the state. Roughly 60% of the population were not counted as members of any religious organization.

Colorado's Geography

Colorado has a Longitude of 102°W to 109°W and a Latitude of 37°N to 41°N. Colorado is 380 miles long and 280 miles wide. The geographic center of Colorado is located in Park County, 30 miles NW of Pike's Peak. Colorado is bordered by Wyoming and Nebraska on the North. And to the South is New Mexico and Oklahoma. The East side is bordered by Nebraska and Kansas and to the West by Utah. Thus, making Colorado a landlocked state. The Southwest corner meets Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. This spot is best known as the Four Corners..

and..,

Colorado covers 104,100 square miles of terrain making it the 8th largest state of our 50 states. It only has 371 square miles of area covered by land and 103,730 square miles of land. The highest point in Colorado, and in the Rocky Mountains, is Mt. Elbert at 14,440 feet above sea level. Colorado is home to more mountains 14,000 feet or higher then any over state. It is home to the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Arkansas River, and South Platte River. It is also home to the Grand Lake, Blue Mesa Reservoir, and John Martin Reservoir.

Colorado River...

Colorado's Regional Division

Colorado’s cities and towns range from gleeful bastions of nightlife and big-city attractions to laidback affairs with tucked-away vistas and history-laden vacation destinations. Graced with a diversity of terrain – from the sun-bathed fissures of western Colorado to the sky-grabbing peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the swaying grass prairie of the Eastern Plains – every corner of Colorado provides a new adventure. Consider a lakeside stay in towns like Grand Lake and Gunnison, or indulge in the raucous downtown exploits of Denver and Colorado Springs. For a slower pace, stroll the thoroughfares of mountain towns like Telluride and Estes Park or visit our array of historic small towns, including Burlington, Pueblo and Julesburg...

Colorado has seven main regions that it is divided into. They are as follows:

Denver Metro Area

The Denver metropolitan area consists of eight counties including all of Denver and Broomfield Counties and parts of Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Douglas, Elbert, and Jefferson Counties. The metro area stretches over 4,500 square miles from Golden to the west to Watkins to the east. The northernmost city is Longmont and the southernmost location is Castle Rock.

Foothills

Generally the foothills are considered the higher terrain between 6,000 and 9,000 feet west of Denver that parallel the Front Range Mountains. The foothills stretch from Roxborough State Park north to the west side of Fort Collins. Evergreen, Morrison, Genesee, Nederland, and Red Feather Lakes are all examples of foothill locations.

Palmer Divide

The Palmer Divide is a ridge of higher terrain that extends from the Front Range of the Rockies in central Colorado, eastward toward the city of Limon on the Eastern Plains. It separates the Arkansas and Missouri River basins. Cities along the Palmer Divide include Monument, Castle Rock, Parker, Kiowa, and Elbert. It is named after William Jackson Palmer who founded Colorado Springs in 1871.

Urban Corridor

The Front Range urban corridor is the area immediately east and west of Interstate 25 from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Pueblo. More than 85 percent of Colorado’s population lives along the urban corridor within the Fort Collins, Greeley, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo metropolitan areas.

Eastern Plains

The Eastern Plains (or just “Plains”) is considered all areas of Colorado east of Interstate 25. Sterling, Limon, Burlington, Lamar, La Junta, and Springfield are examples of Eastern Plains locations.

Front Range

Specifically the Front Range in Colorado is the eastern most mountain range of the Rocky Mountains stretching from Pikes Peak to the Colorado/Wyoming state line. However, the term “Front Range” is used to loosely describe any area from the urban corridor west to the Continental Divide.

Mountains

Any location above 9,000 feet in elevation is generally considered a mountain area. There are three mountain regions in Colorado.