Shongopovi, AZ

Shongopovi is a census-designated place on Second Mesa within the Hopi Reservation, even though its county label is Navajo County. The 2000 census counted 632 residents. Hopi tradition places Shungopavi among the first villages established on Second Mesa, alongside Mishongnovi and Sipaulovi. The mesa setting carries the history: the villages began near springs below the mesa edges and later moved to more defensible positions on top.

Daily life here is tied to Hopi village and tribal institutions more than to a conventional town center. The Hopi Tribe's government is organized around village representatives and traditional village leadership, and Shongopovi is included in the Cedar Unified School District. The surrounding country is high, dry mesa land, with travel spread among reservation communities and nearby school and civic centers. Road travel between villages and reservation communities is part of ordinary geography. That combination of land, village history, language, and community governance gives Shongopovi a character that cannot be separated from the Hopi Reservation around it.