Old Oraibi Navajo Arizona United States

The Hopi village of Oraibi, situated on Third Mesa, eighty miles (one hundred and thirty kilometers) north of modern Winslow, Arizona, Oraibi is founded sometime around the year 1100, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements within the United States.

...the Hopi of northeastern Arizona.

The Hopi, according to their legends, are a gathering of many separate tribes from distant areas, now culturally one people.

Since the Athabascan migrations from Canada (forming the modern Navajo and Apache nations) that ended as late as the fifteenth century, the Hopi have been forced into defensible and dense villages on several mesas, in contrast to the Navajo who prefer to live small family groups in widely distributed farmsteads.

Thus, the Hopi have been town dwellers for many centuries.

The Hopi village of Old Oraibi, located on Third Mesa and founded about the year 1100, is today the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States.

Spanish contacts with Oraibi, the largest, and most important village of the Hopi, begin in 1540, when Coronado’s expedition heads to the Hopi villages, with the expectation that this region might contain the wealthy Cíbola.

The Spanish, upon arrival, are denied entrance to the first village they encounter, and once again resort to using force to enter.

Afterwards the remaining villages do not dare fight the Spanish.

The Hopi region is just as poor materially as the Zuni, but the Spanish do discover that that a large river (the Colorado) lies to the west.