Four Corners Monument

The Four Corners Monument marks the quadripoint in the Southwest United States where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet-the only point in the United States where the boundaries of four states intersect. The monument also marks the boundary between two semi-autonomous native American governments, the Navajo Nation, who maintains the monument as a tourist attraction, and the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation. The origins of the monument as state boundaries began during the American Civil War, when the U.S. Congress acted to form governments in the area to combat Confederate ambitions for the region. In 2009, a controversy erupted with a series of newspaper articles claiming that the monument was misplaced in the initial surveys. The accuracy of the initial surveys has been defended by the U.S. National Geodetic Survey and the monument has been legally established as the corner of the four states.