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( or ) is a city in Tooele County in the U.S. state of Utah. It is part of the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 22,502 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Tooele County. The city is well known for Tooele Army Depot, privately-owned waste-disposal facilities west of Tooele Valley, and TOCDF, a government-owned chemical weapons incinerator south of Tooele Valley.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 21.2 square miles (54.8 km²), of which, 21.1 square miles (54.8 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.09%) is water.
Tooele is located on the western slopes of the Oquirrh Mountains in the Tooele Valley, the next valley west of the well-known Salt Lake Valley. Many popular camping and picnic areas surround the city.
The unusual name for the town is thought by some to have evolved from an old Ute Indian word for tumbleweed. This is only one of many unverified explanations, as the name's usage predated the introduction of the Russian thistle to the United States. Other explanations include that the name derives from a Native American chief, but controversy exists about whether such a chief lived. Others hypothesize that the name comes from "tu-wanda", the Goshute word for "bear", or from "tule", a Spanish word of Aztec origin, meaning