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Alta is a town in eastern Salt Lake County, Utah, with a population of 228 at the 2020 census, down from 383 in 2010, and the 2010 census counted 156 households in the town.

Alta was founded about 1865 to house miners from the Emma mine, the Flagstaff mine, and other silver mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and its name comes from the Spanish word for high.

Rich silver ore from the Emma mine was sold at an inflated price to British investors in 1871, and the exhaustion of the ore body led to the recall of the American ambassador to Great Britain and to Congressional hearings in Washington.

An 1878 fire and an 1885 avalanche destroyed most of the original mining town, and by the 1930s only one resident, George Watson, remained.

Watson donated much of his land in Alta to the U.S. Forest Service on the condition that it be used to build a ski area, Norwegian skiing legend Alf Engen was hired to help develop it in 1935, and Alta opened its first ski lift in 1938.

Alta was incorporated as a town in 1970.

Alta is centered in the Alta Ski Area, a ski resort with about 500,000 annual visitors that is known for its powder skiing and for not allowing snowboarding.

Alta averages more than 507 inches of snow per year, received as much as 900 inches in the 1982-1983 season, and recorded 108.54 inches of precipitation in 1983, a calendar-year record for any state in the Mountain West.

Alta sits at an elevation of about 8,560 feet, making it one of the highest towns in Utah.

An alleged incident in Alta in 1873 was adapted by Rod Serling for the Twilight Zone episode entitled Mr. Garrity and the Graves.