Monument Valley isn't what you think of as a valley. It's miles of flat land interrupted by strange, jagged rock formations that seem to have suddenly thrust themselves out of the earth. The brief technical explanation is that layers of sandstone and shale once covered the entire region. Those layers were buried and then later uplifted and worn away by years of erosion by wind and rain, and the mesas, buttes, and pinnacles are what remain.

The area lies completely within the Navajo Indian Reservation and stradddles the border of northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah.