Moving here Cedar Hills
A superlative that is true one way and marginal the other
The smallest city on the bench, and what that means on the ground.
Cedar Hills covers 2.73 square miles against Alpine's 7.95 and Highland's 8.64, which makes the claim emphatic on area and a coin toss on population, since the 2020 census counted 10,019 here and 10,251 in Alpine. The terrace an Ice Age lake left behind, the state highway that was decommissioned in 2014 and still carries the canyon traffic, the single commercial corner, and the one date on this address that is already fixed.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Cedar Hills is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Utah County partner agent.
Start here
Smallest by area, and only just smallest by population.
Cedar Hills is described as the smallest city on this bench and the claim is worth pulling apart, because it is emphatically true one way and barely true the other. By land area it is not close: 2.73 square miles against Alpine's 7.95 and Highland's 8.64. This city could be dropped into either of its neighbours three times over. By population the gap is a rounding error, because the 2020 census counted 10,019 people here and 10,251 in Alpine.
So the honest version leads with the ground. What Cedar Hills actually is, is the densest of the three bench cities by a wide margin, at roughly 3,670 people to the square mile against something nearer 2,240 in Highland and 1,290 in Alpine. That single ratio drives most of what a buyer notices here: the lots are smaller, the streets are shorter, the city is essentially finished, and there is no undeveloped quarter waiting to become anything.
The city is also young by Utah standards. Building began in 1974, incorporation as a town followed on 2 November 1977, and city status came on 22 July 1999 after the growth of the 1990s. The name goes back further than the city does: the junipers on the slopes above were called cedars, the hills took their name from the trees, and the city took its name from the hills.
The city, in facts
2.73 sq mi
of land, against 7.95 and 8.64 next door
10,019
people at the 2020 census
~3,670
people per square mile, the densest on this bench
1974
when building began; a city since 22 July 1999
The three bench cities on paper
Geography, not a verdict, and the difference matters.
Here are the census numbers behind the superlative in this page's title. This is a table of land area and population and nothing else. It is not a recommendation, it does not weigh one city against another on anything a buyer would actually decide on, and this site does that work somewhere else entirely.
| Cedar Hills | Alpine | Highland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land area | 2.73 square miles | 7.95 square miles | 8.64 square miles |
| Population at the 2020 census | 10,019 | 10,251 | 19,348 |
| People per square mile, roughly | 3,670 | 1,290 | 2,240 |
| How it sits on the bench | Terraced up to the canyon mouth | Furthest north, hard against the mountain front | The widest of the three, west of both |
Land areas and populations from the 2020 decennial census, checked 14 August 2026; the density column is arithmetic on those two figures rather than a published statistic. This table exists to test one claim about size and it should not be read as a comparison of these cities in any other respect. The comparisons this site argues properly, with the data behind them, live in the comparison section.
Two cities at a time
The comparison section
Where two towns get weighed against each other properly, at length, with the figures shown and the sources named.
Open the sectionThe numbers
The Cedar Hills city guide
Prices, taxes, utilities, orientation and drive times, which is the relocation homework this companion stays out of.
Read the guideThe valley
Utah Valley on The Local
Every town in the valley plus the seven subjects too big for any one of them to claim, gathered in one place.
Open the hubThe ground under the streets
An Ice Age lake cut the ledge this city was built on.
Cedar Hills sits at about 4,935 feet on a terrace, and the terrace is not a coincidence of grading. Ancient Lake Bonneville stood over this valley for thousands of years and its shoreline cut a bench into the lower slopes of Mount Timpanogos. That bench is the flat ground the city was laid out on, stepped up in tiers from the valley floor toward the mountain front, and it is the reason a place with a mountain immediately behind it has buildable ground at all.
The practical consequences are the ones a buyer feels. Streets here are sloped, and the higher tiers carry real grade, which changes how a driveway works, where water goes in a thaw and what snow management costs in effort through a winter. The upper streets pay for that grade with the longest views of Lone Peak and Timpanogos, which is the trade this city has been making since the 1970s.
The same terrace carries the trail. The dirt line running north and south above the last houses follows the old shoreline, and it is real ground that is worth walking, but it is not a finished corridor. None of the stretch above Cedar Hills carries an official designation, parts of the wider segment cross private ground, and neighbouring cities call their own pieces of the same line by different names. It is a genuine amenity described honestly rather than a signed and mapped facility.
Below the trail and above the freeway there is nothing but city. What that means in practice is that the outdoor life here is either the paved county corridor across the bench, which is documented at valley level, or the canyon at the end of the road, which is American Fork's to explain. Cedar Hills is the doorstep to both and the owner of neither.
The flat ground this city was laid out on is the shoreline of a lake that drained about fifteen thousand years ago.
The road that stopped being a highway
Canyon Road was SR-146 from 1933 until 2014.
For eighty one years the road along the eastern edge of Cedar Hills was a state highway. State Route 146 ran about 5.3 miles, north on 100 East through Pleasant Grove, becoming Canyon Road and following the foothills along the eastern side of Cedar Hills, and ending at the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway at the mouth of American Fork Canyon. It was designated in 1933 and the designation was cancelled in 2014, when the mileage was traded for the creation of another state route elsewhere in Utah and the road was handed to local jurisdiction.
Nothing about the pavement changed on the day it happened, and everything about the responsibility did. A state highway is UDOT's to maintain, to plough, to resurface and to widen. A city street is the city's, and a county road is the county's. Canyon Road still does the job it always did, carrying the through traffic from the valley floor to the SR-92 junction at the canyon mouth, and the bill for keeping it able to do that now sits closer to home.
That is not an abstract point here. The road is the reason a city of 2.73 square miles has a genuine canyon doorstep, it carries traffic from well outside Cedar Hills toward a federal recreation area, and it has been the subject of public petitioning about reconstruction and widening. Anyone weighing an address on or near it should understand that the improvements people talk about are local decisions with local funding attached rather than something a state agency has queued up.
The naming convention is worth getting right as well, because it turns up in listings and in directions. It is Canyon Road, and it was SR-146. Present tense references to SR-146 are describing something that has not existed since 2014.
The through road at the canyon mouth is a local road now, and that changes who fixes it. State Route 146 was decommissioned in 2014 and Canyon Road passed to local jurisdiction. It still functions as the through route from the valley floor to the SR-92 junction at the mouth of American Fork Canyon, which means a road maintained locally is carrying traffic bound for a federal fee area used by the whole region. Maintenance, snow removal, resurfacing and any future widening are now city and county questions decided in local budgets rather than programmed by UDOT, and residents have petitioned publicly on exactly that point. If you are buying on or near this corridor, ask the city what is actually programmed rather than assuming a state agency has it in hand, and treat any listing that calls it SR-146 as working from a map that is more than a decade out of date.
One commercial corner
A supercentre that took a referendum, and not much else.
The entire commercial district of Cedar Hills is essentially one intersection on Cedar Hills Drive. The anchor is the Walmart Supercenter at 4689 West, and how it got there is a genuine piece of local history rather than a retail footnote. The store opened on 18 March 2009 at the end of a long negotiation in which the city held the chain to its own building standards, and it followed a referendum in which voters rejected a provisional 2005 city ordinance that would have barred stores from opening on Sunday and from selling beer. The city set the design terms; the electorate settled the trading terms.
What has been added since is modest and recent. A Dutch Bros drive through operates at 4773 West Cedar Hills Drive as of August 2026. A Jack in the Box was approved for the same retail centre and is not operating; the chain's Utah presence remains a small cluster in the south of the state, so treat that one as approved rather than open until it is serving.
The honest summary for anyone weighing an address is that day to day errands leave the city. Groceries beyond the supercentre, restaurants, hardware, cinemas and anything resembling a high street are downhill in American Fork and Highland, five to ten minutes away, and the bigger retail sits west toward Lehi. That is not a complaint about Cedar Hills; it is the arithmetic of 2.73 square miles that is almost entirely residential by design.
It also explains why the city's public assets punch above the size of the place. With no commercial base to speak of and no room to build one, what Cedar Hills has built for itself is a golf course, a set of parks, an amphitheatre and a trail connection, and it has paid for them out of a small tax base. The arguments about whether that was wise are the subject of the golf page.
The one date already fixed
The district on this address changes with the 2027 to 2028 school year.
Several things about this city are in motion and only one of them carries a settled date. Here it is, stated plainly and with the authority named, and nothing else about schools appears anywhere on this companion.
Cedar Hills changes school districts on a schedule already set. Alpine School District carries the city for one more school year; with the start of 2027 to 2028 it belongs to Aspen Peaks School District, formed with two others when Utah County voters divided Alpine three ways in November 2024 and shared with Lehi, American Fork, Highland and Alpine. The new map tracks municipal boundaries, and Utah County's school district boundary FAQ answers the address level question.
| What is changing | Status as of August 2026 | What that means for a purchase |
|---|---|---|
| The district on the address | Dated and under way; operations begin with the 2027 to 2028 school year | A certainty rather than a proposal; confirm the specific address with Utah County |
| The golf course renovation | Master plan approved in late 2025; construction running through the 2026 season | The course has been at nine holes for most of 2026, and the work is funded with bonded debt |
| A boutique hotel at the canyon mouth end of the course | Floated by the mayor in July 2024; discussed and not approved | Nothing funded, nothing built; it should carry no weight in a decision |
| The retail centre on Cedar Hills Drive | A coffee drive through operating as of August 2026; a second approval not yet trading | Announced is not open; check what is actually serving before you count on it |
Sources for this table: Utah County, Cedar Hills City, the City Council packet published on the Utah Public Notice Website for 2 December 2025, and the operators' own store listings, all checked 14 August 2026. One row is a settled schedule, one is under construction, one was never approved and one is partly open, so read them as four different grades of certainty. The boundary for an exact address is a question for the county rather than for any map attached to a listing.
Where this sits
The practical end of a six page companion.
Everything above is geology, statute and municipal record. The four pages beside it deal with what a person actually does here on a Saturday.
The companion
Cedar Hills, in full
The rest of the companion: the course at the top of the road, the June week and the ranked six.
Read the pageThe civic argument
The Cedar Hills Golf Club
A par 71 bought with public debt in 2001, argued about for a decade, and renovated rather than sold.
Read the pageWhat to do here
The top 6, ranked
The honest six, ordered, each carrying the address, the operator and whatever clock it happens to run on.
Read the pageKeep reading
The rest of the Cedar Hills companion.
Things to do
The top 6, ranked
Six that survive a count in 2.73 square miles, with the borrowed scenery handed back.
Read the guideThe course
The Cedar Hills Golf Club
A par 71 the city owns, a six hole par three beside it, and a bond that ran the politics.
Read the guideEight days in June
The Family Festival
A 5K, a parade up 4600 West, a car show on the amphitheatre grounds and drones at 9.45.
Read the guideThe stage on the hill
Heritage Park
An amphitheatre finished in 2024, a grass hillside for seating, and King Lear on it first.
Read the guideThe companion
Cedar Hills, in full
The course, the amphitheatre, the June week and the 2.73 square miles they all fit inside.
Read the pageQuick answers
Moving to Cedar Hills, answered.
By land area, comfortably. Cedar Hills covers 2.73 square miles against 7.95 in Alpine and 8.64 in Highland, so it would fit inside either neighbour about three times over. By population the claim is marginal rather than clear, because the 2020 census counted 10,019 people here and 10,251 in Alpine. The meaningful consequence of the area figure is density: roughly 3,670 people per square mile here, against something nearer 2,240 in Highland and 1,290 in Alpine.
2.73 square miles, all of it land, at about 4,935 feet on a terrace cut into the lower slopes of Mount Timpanogos. That is small enough that the June parade crosses the whole city in under two miles and that every address is within a few minutes of the golf course at the top and the commercial corner at the bottom. It is also small enough that the city is effectively built out, with no significant undeveloped ground left inside the boundary.
Cedar Hills changes school districts on a schedule already set. Alpine School District carries the city for one more school year; with the start of 2027 to 2028 it belongs to Aspen Peaks School District, formed with two others when Utah County voters divided Alpine three ways in November 2024 and shared with Lehi, American Fork, Highland and Alpine. The new map tracks municipal boundaries, and Utah County's school district boundary FAQ answers the address level question.
Not since 2014. State Route 146 ran about 5.3 miles from 100 East in Pleasant Grove, along Canyon Road and the eastern foothills of Cedar Hills, to the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway at the mouth of American Fork Canyon. It was designated in 1933 and cancelled in 2014, with the mileage traded for another state route and the road transferred to local jurisdiction. It still carries the same through traffic to the SR-92 junction, but its maintenance, snow removal and any widening are local decisions now.
The junipers growing on the slopes above the city were called cedars by the people who settled below them, the hills were named for the trees, and the city took its name from the hills. Building began in 1974 on ground that had been a turkey ranch through the middle of the twentieth century, incorporation as a town followed on 2 November 1977, and the community reclassified as a city on 22 July 1999 after the rapid growth of the 1990s.
Essentially one corner of Cedar Hills Drive. The anchor is the Walmart Supercenter at 4689 West, which opened on 18 March 2009 after a long negotiation over building standards and a referendum in which voters rejected a provisional 2005 ordinance barring Sunday trading and beer sales. A Dutch Bros drive through operates at 4773 West as of August 2026 and a further approval at the same retail centre is not yet trading. Everything else is downhill in American Fork and Highland.
Effectively, yes. There is no significant vacant developable ground left inside 2.73 square miles, which makes this a resale market of established single family housing rather than a place with fields waiting to be platted. What new building happens is infill on a remaining lot. The practical consequence for a buyer is that inventory can be thin and the right home in the right tier of the bench is worth being ready to move on, which is a preparation problem rather than a pricing one.
The flat ground the city is built on. Ancient Lake Bonneville stood over this valley for thousands of years and its shoreline cut a terrace into the lower slopes of Mount Timpanogos, and Cedar Hills was laid out on that terrace in tiers rising toward the mountain front. The practical effects are grade, drainage and snow management on the higher streets, and the longest views of Lone Peak and Timpanogos as the compensation. The dirt trail above the top streets follows the same old shoreline.
Four things. Which tier of the bench the lot sits on, because grade decides driveway, drainage and snow effort on the upper streets. How the property's two water connections are set up, since most homes here carry a culinary connection and a separate pressurised irrigation one. What the parcel backs onto in a city with a single commercial corner and a golf course boundary. And the district boundary for the exact address with Utah County, ahead of the change that starts with the 2027 to 2028 school year.
Two and three quarter square miles, and four questions worth settling first.
Most cities give you room to change your mind about which part of them you want. This one gives you a terrace, a spine road, a golf course at the top and a supercentre at the bottom, and the decisions come down to which tier of the bench a street sits on and what a specific parcel backs onto. Those are not things a listing photograph answers. Tell me what you are weighing and I will put you with a Utah County partner agent who works this bench, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.