Mesa runs 18 miles from Price Road to Meridian Road. The west side is settled and green, while the east side meets open Sonoran Desert, and the pests shift as you drive from one end to the other.
Mesa is the third most populous city in Arizona, with 504,258 residents in the 2020 census and about 139 square miles inside its limits. Mormon pioneers founded it in 1878 on the mesa that gave the city its name and reused canals the Hohokam had dug centuries earlier. The city now touches the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community on the north and Apache Junction on the east, with Falcon Field in the northeast and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in the far southeast.
That spread gives Mesa two very different kinds of home. Established neighborhoods such as Dobson Ranch fill much of the west side, while homes in the northeast sit near Red Mountain Park and Usery Mountain Regional Park, right against native desert. Mesa also has many 55 and older RV resorts, including Mesa Regal, with more than 2,000 sites. Each Mesa visit is planned around the setting of the property.