Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Utah. The city was founded in 1847 as Great Salt Lake City by a group of Mormon explorers led by their prophet, Brigham Young, who fled hostility and violence in the Midwest. They extensively irrigated and cultivated the arid valley and faced persecution from the United States government for their practice of polygamy, which was eventually abandoned in 1890. Today, Salt Lake City is still home to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Before Mormon settlement, the Shoshone, Ute, and Paiute lived in the Salt Lake Valley for thousands of years. At the time of the founding of Salt Lake City the valley was within the territory of the Northwestern Shoshone; however, occupation was seasonal, near streams emptying from Canyons into the Salt Lake Valley. The land was treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone was ever acknowledged by the United States. The first U.S. explorer in the Salt Lake area is believed to be Jim Bridger in 1825, although others had been in Utah earlier, some as far north as the nearby Utah Valley.

Four days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young designated the site for the Salt Lake Temple, intended to be the third temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to replace the abandoned Kirtland Temple in Ohio and Nauvoo Temple in Illinois.

The Mormon pioneers formed a new state called Deseret and petitioned for its recognition in 1849. The United States Congress rebuffed the settlers in 1850 and set up the Utah Territory, greatly reducing its size. In 1858 Great Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital and the name was subsequently abbreviated to Salt Lake City. The city's population swelled with an large inflow of religious converts, making it one of the most populous cities in the American Old West.

Salt Lake City was chosen to host the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995. The games were plagued with conflict. A bid scandal surfaced in 1998 alleging that bribes had been offered to secure the city for the 2000 games location. Despite the controversies, the games were seen as a financial success, being one of the few in recent history to profit.