Yuma, city, seat of Yuma County, extreme southwestern Arizona, on the Colorado River; incorporated as a city 1914. It is an agricultural center in an irrigated region, where cotton, citrus fruit, and truck crops are grown. A community college is here, and a U.S. Marine Corps air station is nearby. Of interest in Yuma are the Yuma Quartermaster Depot (1863) and a prison (1876), which was used until 1909. Two missions were established here in 1779, but permanent white settlement did not begin until about 1850, when the community was a stop for travelers to California. The community was known as Colorado City and Arizona City before being renamed Yuma, for the Yuma people, in 1873. Population 42,433 (1980); 54,923 (1990); 62,433 (1998 estimate).
