Albuquerque is a magnificently unique combination of the very old and the highly contemporary, the natural world and the manmade environment, the frontier town and the cosmopolitan city, the indigenous and the come-lately. It is a harmonious but spectacular blend of extremely diverse cultures, cuisines, people, styles, stories, pursuits, and panoramas.

It is a city with a rich history. Evidence of inhabitation dates back as long as 25,000 years. That is the estimated age of bones recovered from a cave in the northwestern sector of the Sandia Mountains in 1936. (Skeptics and scholars have since widely revised the estimated age to something more like 10,000 years.) Anasazi Indians were the next to settle in the area. They lived here for two centuries, from 1100 to 1300, and established several communities throughout northwestern New Mexico connected by sophisticated transportation and communication networks.