Manila, UT

Manila is the county seat of Daggett County, a small Utah town just south of the Wyoming line at the junction of State Routes 43 and 44. The 2020 census counted 308 residents. The settlement was named in 1898 after the American naval victory at Manila Bay, and it became the county seat when Daggett County was organized in 1918. The courthouse and county offices give the town a civic role larger than its population.

Flaming Gorge shapes the modern map around Manila. The reservoir and national recreation area lie nearby, while Ashley National Forest stretches south toward Kings Peak. The town also felt the arrival of workers during the Flaming Gorge project, adding a twentieth-century chapter to its ranching and county-seat history. Today, Manila is where Route 43 meets Route 44, where county business happens, and where visitors heading into the gorge country pass through a compact high-desert town. Its name reaches to the Philippines, but its daily life is rooted in Daggett County’s roads, courthouse, reservoir, and mountains.