Maricopa County, Arizona — Click a button to see a new map showing how the valley has changed over the past 100 years.

Maricopa County has created a web page that archives aerial and satellite imagery taken since 1930, allowing people to search for specific areas to see life in the past.

“This makes it easy to visualize what your parcel looked like 5, 10, or 20 years ago,” the county site says.

See images and full maps on the county website here.

The block on which the Arizona State Capitol is located appears to have been part of an artificial forest in the 1930s. It gives a completely different picture compared to the current block with multiple buildings, parking lots and sidewalks.

The prosperity of downtown Tempe around Arizona State University is also visible through the imagery.

How big is Maricopa County?

Maricopa County is the fourth largest county in the United States with a population of 4,485,414 according to the 2020 Census.

The county contains approximately 63% of Arizona’s population and covers 9,224 square miles. This makes the county larger than her seven US states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).

One of the nation’s largest park systems is also located in Maricopa County. There are an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks in the county, including hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.

The county seat is Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the fifth most populous city in the United States according to the Census.

The county is named after the Maricopa (Piipaash), a Native American tribe.

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