Why is an unincorporated rural community in Pima County, Arizona, United States. It lies near the western border of the Tohono Oʼodham Indian Reservation and due north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona. It is approximately 30miles north of the Mexican border where Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico, border each other, and south of Ajo, Arizona.
The population in Why at the 2020 census was approximately 122.[1]
The town derives its name from the fact that two major highways, State Routes 85 and 86, originally intersected in a Y-intersection.[2] At the time of its naming, state law required all city names to have at least three letters, so the town's founders named the town "Why" as opposed to simply calling it "Y." The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) later removed the old Y-intersection for traffic safety reasons and built the two highways in a conventional intersection south of the original intersection.[3]
It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.[4] [5]
Why is not in a school district. The closest district is the Ajo Unified School District.[6]
A portion of Why is in the Indian Oasis-Baboquivari Unified School District,[7] while another is not in any school district.[8] The Pima County School Superintendent arranges for education of K-12 students living in areas without school districts, and that office arranges for transportation to the Ajo Unified School District to the Why areas not in any school district.[9]
This is the sum of the populations of Blocks 1131–1153, Census Tract 49, Pima County, Arizona according to US Census U.S. Census website.