Provo City, Utah is situated almost 70 km south of the states largest city, the city of Salt Lake. The city of Provo is situated along the Wasatch Front, which is a long chain of towns and cities situated towards the west of the Wasatch mountains. The city of Provo serves as the county seat of Utah County and the principal city within the Provo-Orem metropolitan area population of around 526,800. It is the third largest metro area in Utah State after Salt Lake City and Ogden-Clearfield.
A French-Canadian explorer, Etienne Provost, named the area after visiting during 1825. In the latter part of the 1840s, Mormons created a community in Provo, that was later incorporated during 1849. Due to its great quantity of fruit gardens and orchards, the city of Provo was called the "Garden City". Brigham Young Academy was established in the city of Provo during the year 1875. The Academy later became Brigham Young University (or also known as BYU), the largest church-affiliated university within the US. The university has been really essential to Provo. They have been growing together, supporting nationally important academic and sports courses and a local high-technology business.
Provo hosts many events and festivals throughout the year. The biggest festival is the America's Freedom Festival, that is amongst the biggest festivals celebrating the American Independence in the country. This particular event features 30 smaller events that take place on the 4th of July and the three weeks preceding the national holiday. The Stadium of Fire Spectacular is the peak event, held at BYU's Cougar Stadium. Another main event is the annual WinterFest, a series of events starting with the December Christmas Parade within downtown Provo and ending with a Firework Finale on New Year Eve's.
The Provo area has a rather diversified economy. There are a lot of software technology companies in the area. Software companies situated within the Provo region such as Corel, Novell, Inc. and the famous Symantec. Amongst the high tech companies located in the area are Ameritech Library Services, Covergys, PowerQuest Corp., Micron technology, Viewsoft, Nimbus manufacturing and Folio Corporation. The area also has numerous biotech businesses.
Other Provo businesses consist of Nature's Sunshine, Banta Press, Sears Telecatolog and Powder River Manufacturing. Work is provided by the following sectors: education, healthcare, transportation and utilities, trade, manufacturing, government, professional, scientific and management and leisure and hospitality.