How Scottsdale Is Laid Out: The Mile Grid, the Canal, the Greenbelt and the 101

Look at a map of Scottsdale and the first thing you notice is the shape. The city is about 31 miles long from the Tempe line to the edge of the Tonto National Forest, and in the south only a few miles wide, squeezed between Phoenix and Paradise Valley on one side and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on the other. It covers about 184 square miles, and it grew from a single square mile in 1951 by annexing desert northward faster than Phoenix could. Everything about getting around follows from that shape.

The second thing you notice is that it’s a grid, and the grid is your friend. Learn five things, the mile roads, the address numbers, the canal, the Greenbelt and the 101, and you can find anything in the city without a phone. Keep the city map open in another tab; every district below has a link that flies to it.

The mile grid

The Valley sits on the federal land survey, which divided the desert into one-mile squares, and the big roads grew up along the section lines. So a major road every mile, north-south and east-west, with smaller streets filling in between. “A mile east” means one arterial over, about two minutes without traffic. The grid entry has the history.

The north-south roads in Scottsdale have names, not numbers, which is the first thing that throws visitors who’ve just driven through Phoenix’s 40th, 48th and 56th Streets. From west to east in the south and middle of the city:

• 64th Street, the Phoenix line south of Camelback.
• Scottsdale Road, the 7200 East line and the city’s spine, Tempe to Carefree. Through Old Town it narrows, and Goldwater and Drinkwater split off on either side to carry the through traffic. North of Cactus Road it’s also the city line: Scottsdale on the east side, Phoenix on the west.
• Hayden Road, a mile east on the 8000 East line, the locals’ faster route north, following the Greenbelt.
• Pima Road, about a mile east of that, Scottsdale’s eastern edge against the Community for its southern miles, then the road north beside the 101 to the trailheads.

North of the 101, the numbered streets come back. East of Pima, the grid picks up where Phoenix’s numbering would be: 96th Street, 104th, 112th, 124th, 128th. That’s why the Tom’s Thumb trailhead is at 128th Street and the Lost Dog Wash trailhead at 124th.

The east-west mile roads, south to north, are the ones you’ll give directions by: McDowell, Thomas, Indian School, Camelback, Chaparral, McDonald, Indian Bend, Doubletree Ranch, Shea, Cactus, Thunderbird, Bell, which becomes Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard at Scottsdale Road, then out in the desert Pinnacle Peak, Happy Valley, Jomax, Dynamite and, at the top of the map, Carefree Highway.

Shea is the one to remember. It’s the city’s equator: “north of Shea” is a real estate category, and the north vs. south entry explains why median income roughly doubles when you cross it.

How to read an address

Every address in Scottsdale counts out from one corner in downtown Phoenix, Central Avenue and Washington Street, and east-west numbers run 800 to the mile. So:

• The East number tells you how far east of Central you are. Divide the hundreds by eight for miles. Scottsdale Road is 7200 East, nine miles out. Hayden is 8000 East. Anything in the 6900s or 7000s is within a few blocks of Scottsdale Road; anything in the 12000s is out by the McDowells.
• The North number tells you how far up the city you are. In Scottsdale, the useful landmarks: McDowell is 1600 North, Indian School about 4100, Camelback 5000, Shea 10600, Bell and Frank Lloyd Wright 17000, Pinnacle Peak 23400. The Airpark sits around 15000 North.
• Numbered streets are Streets, with Places and Ways between them as you go east, every eighth of a mile a Street. On a north-south street the odd numbers are on the east side; on an east-west street, the south side.

Try it. Scottsdale Fashion Square, 7014 E Camelback Rd: a little west of Scottsdale Road on Camelback, which is exactly where it is. TPC Scottsdale, 17020 N Hayden Rd: on Hayden, a mile east of Scottsdale Road, at the Bell Road line. Tom’s Thumb trailhead, 23015 N 128th St: seven miles east of Scottsdale Road, just south of the Pinnacle Peak line, in the McDowells. Brown’s Ranch, 30301 N Alma School Pkwy: the far north, where the numbers keep climbing toward Carefree.

One catch: the city on an address follows the post office, not the city limits. A “Scottsdale” address can be in Phoenix, Paradise Valley or on the Community; the ZIP code entry and the Is Scottsdale in Phoenix? note sort it out.

The canal

One thing cuts across the grid on a diagonal: the Arizona Canal, dug from 1883 to 1885 along the high ground above the Salt River. It’s why Scottsdale is here; Winfield Scott bought his land beside it in 1888. Inside the city it runs roughly four miles, from Pima Road past Chaparral Park and under Scottsdale Road at the Waterfront, to the Phoenix line at 64th Street. SRP still runs it as a working canal, and the banks are a path. The Soleri Bridge at Scottsdale and Camelback is the place to stand on it, and in November it carries Canal Convergence.

There’s a second canal far to the north: the CAP, the Colorado River aqueduct, finished in 1993, which crosses north Scottsdale near the Princess and WestWorld.

The Greenbelt

Down the middle of the city runs the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt, about eleven miles of parks, lakes, golf courses and paved path from Shea south to McKellips and the Tempe line, following Hayden Road for much of the way. It’s a flood channel disguised as a park: when the Army Corps wanted a concrete ditch in the 1960s, the city built grass instead, and after big storms the water still runs through it. The Greenbelt entry tells that story. For a visitor, it’s the best way to cross central Scottsdale on a bike, under every major road; the cut-through notes show how. It also explains the map: that green ribbon through the central Scottsdale district is why so many east-west streets jog or stop.

The 101

The Loop 101, the Pima Freeway on this side of town, is Scottsdale’s only freeway, and it didn’t exist until it was finished on April 7, 2002. It comes up the eastern edge of the city along the Community’s boundary beside Pima Road, then swings west across the north toward Phoenix. Nearly every resort, golf course and trailhead north of Old Town is reached by a 101 exit. To the south, the 202 Red Mountain Freeway is the airport road. The getting-around note has the rush-hour patterns.

The Preserve

The top third of the city is mostly protected desert: the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, more than 30,500 acres, bought with voter-approved sales taxes since 1995 and covering about a third of Scottsdale. It’s why the map goes quiet in the northeast, and why the city’s numbered streets out there mostly lead to trailheads. Name the trailhead, not “the Preserve,” when you plan a hike; Gateway, Tom’s Thumb, Brown’s Ranch and Lost Dog Wash are miles apart. The Preserve entry has more.

The enclaves and edges

Scottsdale’s neighbors account for most of the map’s odd corners:

• Paradise Valley, the one-acre-lot town around Camelback and Mummy Mountains, on the west side between Phoenix and Scottsdale. Many of the resorts people call Scottsdale are in it. The Paradise Valley entry and the Camelback Corridor district cover it.
• The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, a sovereign nation east of Pima Road and the 101 in the south: Talking Stick, Salt River Fields, the Pavilions and OdySea. On the map it’s the Talking Stick and Salt River district.
• Phoenix, along the west side north of Cactus, including the Kierland district and Desert Ridge.
• Fountain Hills, over the McDowells to the east, and Carefree and Cave Creek across the top.
• Rio Verde Foothills, unincorporated county land past the northeast corner, and a few county islands inside the city that were never annexed; the annexation entry explains how that happens.

The districts, south to north

With the grid in your head, the city reads as a string of districts up Scottsdale Road:

1. South Scottsdale, the 1950s ranch-house grid from McDowell down to Tempe. Guide.
2. Old Town, Indian School to Camelback around Scottsdale Road, the only part of the city you can do on foot. Guide, and the walking route.
3. The Camelback Corridor, the resorts west along Camelback toward Phoenix and Paradise Valley. Guide.
4. McCormick Ranch and Gainey Ranch, the 1970s lake-and-golf middle between Indian Bend and Shea.
5. The Shea corridor, restaurants and Mayo Clinic along the city’s equator.
6. North Scottsdale, the Airpark and the master-planned desert from Shea toward the 101. Guide.
7. Princess and WestWorld, TPC Scottsdale and the equestrian grounds along the 101.
8. DC Ranch and McDowell Mountain Ranch and Grayhawk, the planned communities beyond the freeway.
9. Pinnacle Peak and Troon and Desert Mountain, the boulder country at the top.

Using the map

The Scottsdale map on this site is one sheet, the whole city on the grid, with every guide pinned: restaurants, resorts, parks, trailheads, golf and the districts. Search it, switch layers off, and share a link to the exact view. It downloads as an SVG, which prints cleanly at any size, so the paper version for the glovebox is a click away. Pair it with the getting-around note and you have everything a local carries in their head.