The city of Flagstaff, Arizona is located in the northern region of Arizona located on the western side of countries largest contiguous Ponderosa Pine forest. It lies close to the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau. The population of the city was 60,611 during the year 2009 and based on statistics for 2010, the MSA was recorded with 175,871 inhabitants.
The name "Flagstaff" is derived from a Ponderosa Pine flagpole made by a Boston scouting party known as the "Second Boston Party." This was made on July 4, 1876, to celebrate the US Centennial. The city of Flagstaff is the county seat of Coconino County.
The city of Flagstaff is found just south of the San Francisco Peaks, adjacent to Mount Elden. This is the highest mountain range within the Arizona state. In Kachina Peaks Wilderness, Humphreys Peak is situated, around 16 kilometers or 10 miles north of Flagstaff, and it forms the highest point in the state at 3850 meters or 12,633 feet.
Flagstaff's economy is was originally based on lumber, ranching, and the railroad. Presently, the city has many major distribution centers for the businesses Purina PetCare, Nestle and Walgreens. Flagstaff is also home to the United States Naval Observatory, Lowell Observatory and the USA Geological Survey Flagstaff Station as well as Northern Arizona University. There is a strong concentration on tourism in Flagstaff due to its nearness to the Arizona Snowbowl, Oak Creek Canyon, the historic Route 66, Grand Canyon National Park and the Meteror Crater. The city of Flagstaff is home to W.L. Gore and Associates, which is part of the medical device manufacturing sector.
Amongst the largest employers in Flagstaff consist of the Flagstaff Medical Center, the Northern Arizona University and the Flagstaff Unified School District. Transportation, education and government and tourism have mostly replaced the ranching, railroad and lumber businesses. More than 5 million tourists go through Flagstaff on an annual basis also. There are Various hotel and restaurant chains that are rather successful within the area due to all of the tourism that the Grand Canyon generated. There are 2 historic hotels located in the downtown area: the Hotel Monte Vista and the Weatherford Hotel.
Among the famous high tech scientific research and development operations within the city of Flagstaff include the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, referred to as NOFS, the Lowell Observatory, the USGS or United States Geographical Survey's Flagstaff Campus and Northern Arizona University. Lowell Observatory is a famous tourist's center and an active astronomical observatory. They host tours and educational displays. They offer a distributed network of small telescopes which simultaneously, provide images of celestial bodies with much higher resolutions than produced by any other single telescope. Some of the current research is involved in observations of near-Earth phenomena like for example comets and asteroids.