Wyoming Basin
The Wyoming Basin (Engl. Wyoming Basin ) is an arid basin landscape in the central and northwestern part of the United States of America . It occupies almost two thirds of the US state of Wyoming and mainly separates the southern Rocky Mountains - mainly located in Colorado - from the central Rocky Mountains, which extend from northwest Wyoming towards Canada. The approximately 140,000 km² large basin is located in the rain shadow of the Rockies at an altitude of about 2000 meters, drops continuously from the center in the north and reaches an altitude of about 1300 meters at its northern limit in Montana .
The majority of the intermontane basin is in the US state of Wyoming, where it is bounded in the west by the Middle Rocky Mountains ( Absaroka and Wind River Range ) and in the east by the Bighorn and Laramie Mountains . The southwest and southern borders are mostly in one of the neighboring states; in the southwest the Wyoming Basin extends to the Bear River Range in Idaho and Utah and to the Uinta Mountains in Utah and Colorado . Further to the east, the Park Range and Medicine Bow Mountains form the southern, and the Laramie Mountains form the southeasternmost limit of the Wyoming Basin. It extends in the valley of the North Platte River between the Park Range and Medicine Bow Mountains to the Rabbit Ears Range and again to Colorado.
The Wyoming Basin is a vast steppe landscape, especially of sagebrush ( Sagebrush ), wheat grass and Shadscales , shrubby steppe plants, dominated and is punctuated by major hills or smaller mountain ranges. In particular in the southern and southwestern part, the basin also includes larger areas of fertile soil and sparse vegetation; this particular one dischargeless Great Divide Basin in Wyoming's "Red Desert" ( Red Desert ), with its many sand dunes and salt flats. It forms the only major region in the basin that is not irrigated by any of the three river systems ( Green River , Bighorn River and North Platte River ). In the northern part, on the other hand, artificial irrigation systems ensure a greater degree of agricultural use.
Coordinates: 42 ° 31 '24.3 " N , 109 ° 39' 9" W.