During the decade of the nineteen-fifties, Arizona, an inland state located in the Southwest and bordered by New Mexico, the country of Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, had one of the fastest-growing populations in the nation with a rate of growth surpassed by only three other states: Florida, Nevada and Alaska. In the early part of the twentieth century, the population was predominantly rural but, by the time of the 1980census, 74.5% was urban-dwelling, as compared with 55.5% at the decennial census ten years earlier.