Monument Valley

Monument Valley (Navajo: meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor. The valley lies within the territory of the Navajo Nation Reservation. Monument Valley has been featured in many forms of media since the 1930s. Director John Ford used the location for a number of his best-known films and thus, in the words of critic Keith Phipps, "its five square miles (13 square kilometers) have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West."