Cathedral City, colloquially known as "Cat City", is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. Situated between Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, the city has the second largest population, after Indio, of the nine cities in the Coachella Valley. Its population was 51,493 at the 2020 census, a slight increase from 51,200 at the 2010 census. Prior to the arrival of European explorers and settlers, the land was part of the territory inhabited by the Cahuilla Indians. Today every other square mile of the city is part of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians reservation land. Development of a town began when a housing subdivision was built in 1925. It became an incorporated municipality in 1981. The city's name is derived from Cathedral Canyon located to the south of the city in the foothills of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. The canyon is said to have received its name because certain rock formations in the canyon were reminiscent of a cathedral. A flood in August 1946 significantly altered the cathedral-like features of the canyon. In the United Kingdom a population center needs to have city status, and a cathedral, in order to be called a cathedral city. This prompted Robert Ripley to include the town of Cathedral City in his December 9, 1939, Believe It Or Not column stating, "Believe it or not … there is no church in Cathedral City, Calif. It is named after a canyon".