Vernal, Utah

Vernal is the county seat of and the largest city in Uintah County, Utah, approximately 175 miles (280 km) east of Salt Lake City and 20 miles (32 km) west of the Colorado border. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 10,079. The population has since grown to 10,432 as of the 2022 population estimate.

Vernal is home to the Vernal Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and one of the nine statewide regional campuses of Utah State University. The city serves as a gateway to the nearby Dinosaur National Monument, Flaming Gorge, and the Uinta Mountain Range.

Vernal, unlike most Utah towns, was not settled by Mormons moving west, or across the state. Brigham Young sent a scouting party to the area Uintah Basin in 1861 and received word back that the area was good for nothing but nomad purposes, hunting grounds for Indians, and "to hold the world together." That same year, President Abraham Lincoln set the area aside as the Uintah Indian Reservation, with Captain Pardon Dodds appointed as Indian agent. Dodds later built the first cabin erected by a white man in the Uintah Basin around 1868. Settlers began to filter in after that and built cabins in various spots on or near Ashley Creek. In 1879, many came close to perishing during the infamous "Hard Winter" of that same year.

Vernal is in the Uintah Basin, bordered on the north by the Uinta Mountains, one of the relatively few mountain ranges which lie in an east–west rather than the usual north-to-south direction. The Tavaputs Plateau lies to the south and Blue Mountain to the east, while Vernal itself lies in Ashley Valley. The valley is named in honor of William H. Ashley, an early fur trader who entered the area in 1825 by floating down the Green River in a bull boat made of animal hides.

Vernal is located on the northern edge of the Colorado Plateau and south of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area on the Utah-Wyoming state line. The city is in a high desert area of the Colorado Plateau.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.6 square miles (11.9 km²), all land.

Vernal has a cold desert climate (Köppen: BWk) with low humidity. The average annual temperature is 46.9 °F (8.3 °C) with a mean high of 59.8 °F (15.4 °C) and a mean low of 34.0 °F (1.1 °C).

As of the 2020 census, Vernal had a population of 10,079. The median age was 29.8 years. 31.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 11.2% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 96.1 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 90.3 males age 18 and over.