New Mexico is the fifth-largest state by area and is sparsely populated, with nearly half of the state’s 2.1 million residents living in the Albuquerque metropolitan area. Below are a few glimpses of the diverse geography and history of New Mexico and some of the wildlife and people calling it home.
This photo story is part of Fifty, a collection of images from each of the United States.
Shiprock, the remnant of an ancient volcano, rises more than 1,500 feet above the surrounding land in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico's San Juan County. #
Hot-air balloons drift over the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque, New Mexico. #
Antennas of the Very Large Array radio telescope stand about 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico. #
Snow geese rest in wetlands in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. #
The 1,000-year-old Taos Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously occupied residences in the United States, and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, stands near Taos, New Mexico. #
A roadrunner runs across a road in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. #
A steam train operates on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad on September 30, 2019. The current railroad was established in the 1970s, running on a railway originally built in the 1880s, between Chama, New Mexico, and Antonito, Colorado. #
Hillside houses and trees, photographed in the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico. #
A view down East San Francisco Street in Santa Fe, looking toward the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, which was completed in 1887, photographed on July 29, 2015. #
Dunes composed of grains of gypsum sand, photographed in New Mexico's White Sands National Park. #
A bleached earless lizard, photographed in White Sands National Park. #
Ruins of the church of San Geronimo, part of a Spanish colonial mission in the Taos Pueblo. The building was largely destroyed by American cannon fire in 1846, during the Mexican-American War. #
The interior of one of the dozens of massive limestone caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. #
A valley view from a snowy peak in the southern Rocky Mountains in New Mexico #
A skier stands amid blowing snow on a ridge in Taos Ski Valley in northern New Mexico. #
Clouds pass over downtown Albuquerque. #
New adobe homes stand in a development in Albuquerque. #
An aerial view of a residential district of Albuquerque #
Autumn-colored aspens, photographed from a pullout along a highway in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Santa Fe #
El Santuario de Chimayo, a Catholic church and National Historic Landmark, stands in Chimayo, New Mexico. The church was built in 1816, and is visited by thousands making pilgrimages during Holy Week every year. #
A storm cloud drops rain near a collection of radio-telescope antennas. #
Visitors to McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch pose next to the world's largest statue of a pistachio, in Alamogordo, on June 9, 2019. #
U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection agents take part in a safety drill along the border in the Anapra area in Sunland Park, New Mexico, U.S.A., across from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on January 31, 2019. #
A bobcat carries away its catch in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. #
Ruins of the Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula stand in Pecos National Historic Park, near Santa Fe. #
Boeing, NASA, and U.S. Army personnel work around the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft shortly after it landed in White Sands, New Mexico, on December 22, 2019. The landing completed an abbreviated Orbital Flight Test for the company that still met several mission objectives for NASA's Commercial Crew program. #
The historic Blue Swallow Motel, photographed at sunset in Tucumcari, New Mexico, on May 13, 2016. This structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as a part of the historic U.S. Route 66. #
Lightning strikes from cloud cover above Albuquerque. #
A cow crosses a road, with historic Acoma Pueblo visible atop a mesa in the distance. #
The Rio Grande flows out of the snowcapped Rocky Mountains in Colorado and journeys 1,900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. It passes through the 800-foot chasms of the Rio Grande Gorge, a wild and remote area of northern New Mexico. #
A view of the structures in the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. More than 700 years ago, people of the Mogollon culture built some of the first homes in this location. #
Petroglyphs are visible along the Una Vida trail, seen in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park on May 20, 2015. #
An unusual hoodoo, named the "alien throne," photographed in the Valley of Dreams in New Mexico's Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area #
A lonely highway runs from Tucumcari, New Mexico, through the brush and mesas of the high desert. #
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