Cheops Pyramid is a flat-topped butte in the Grand Canyon of northern Arizona, rising to 5,401 feet and standing about four miles north of Grand Canyon Village. Although not especially high by regional standards, it rises roughly 3,000 feet above the Colorado River in a short distance, giving it dramatic local relief. Named by George Wharton James for its imagined resemblance to the pyramid of the Egyptian pharaoh Cheops, the name followed Clarence Dutton’s pattern for evocative canyon names and was officially adopted in 1906 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The butte is also a compact display of the canyon’s layered geology, from Redwall Limestone down to much older Proterozoic rocks.