The All-American Canal is the delivery mechanism for the valley's agriculture — an 80-mile channel that carries Colorado River water from the Imperial Dam near Yuma to the farms of Imperial County. The canal is entirely within the United States, designed in the 1930s to replace an older channel that had run partly through Mexican territory. Agriculture employs nearly half the working population of the county, and the seasonal rhythms of planting and harvest define life in the valley's towns. El Centro, the county seat, serves as the commercial hub. Brawley, Calexico, Calipatria, and a dozen smaller communities exist largely because the water infrastructure made farming viable. Remove the canal and the valley returns to desert within a generation.

The Navy Air Facility El Centro has served as the Blue Angels' winter training base for decades. The choice is practical: clear skies, mild winter temperatures, and restricted airspace over the surrounding desert provide an ideal environment for the precision formation flying that the Blue Angels perfect each winter before their touring season begins. Residents of the valley grow accustomed to F/A-18 Super Hornets flying in diamond formation overhead, the sound arriving seconds after the aircraft pass. NAF El Centro also supports training for carrier operations and other naval aviation functions. The military presence is one of the valley's significant employers, providing stable jobs in an economy that otherwise fluctuates with crop prices and seasonal labor demand.

At the eastern edge of the valley, where Imperial County meets Arizona, the Algodones Dunes rise in a ribbon of golden sand forty miles long. The largest sand dune system in the United States, the Algodones attract off-road vehicle enthusiasts by the hundreds of thousands each winter. They also attracted George Lucas. The scenes of Tatooine's desert — specifically the scenes involving Jabba's Palace and the sarlacc pit — in Return of the Jedi were filmed in the Algodones Dunes. The footage was shot in 1982, and the dunes' lunar quality, which made them perfect for a far-galaxy desert planet, also makes them among the most dramatic landscape features visible along the valley's eastern border.

The Imperial Valley has produced figures who shaped California and American history in ways that its modest profile would not suggest. Cher was born in El Centro. Dalip Singh Saund, elected to Congress in 1956, became the first Asian American to serve in the House of Representatives — a Democrat from Imperial County who defeated a Republican opponent in a valley that was then, as now, politically complex. The valley's demographics have always been significantly Hispanic, reflecting both the proximity to Mexico and the agricultural labor market that drew generations of workers north. The winter of 1932 brought the valley's only recorded snowfall, on December 12 — a meteorological anomaly in a place where the weather is usually brutally predictable.