Chuckwalla Valley

The Chuckwalla Valley is a large valley in eastern Riverside County, California, named for a large lizard, the chuckwalla found in the arid Southwestern United States deserts.

The region of the valley in southeast California, is the low elevation section of the Mojave Desert transitioning into the Colorado Desert, the northwest extension (in California) of the Sonoran Desert. The region is notable for valleys containing bajadas, sand dunes, and intermittent, dry, or saline lakes. Chuckwalla Valley contains Ford Lake (Ford Dry Lake) in the east-southeast; Palen Lake (Palen Dry Lake) occurs in the center-northwest, at the south terminus of the smaller, north-south Palen Valley.

The south end of the valley expands slightly northwest-by-southeast, and contains Danby Dry Lake, a 13-mi (21 km) long dry lake, or playa. Mountain ranges surround the valley on all sides. The neighboring valleys eastward over the mountain ranges, Chemehuevi Valley, Vidal Valley, and Rice Valley are all western tributary valleys to the south-flowing Colorado River along the Lower Colorado River Valley corridor.

The center of the valley is approximately just east of the Oro Plata Mine at the east of the Old Woman Mountains.