The city was named after Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly (1877-1950), the wife of Theodore Carlton Schnebly, the city's first postmaster. Sedona's mother, Amanda Miller, claimed to have made the name up because "it sounded pretty".

The red rocks of Sedona are formed by a unique layer of rock known as the Schnebly Hill Formation, a thick layer of red to orange-colored sandstone found only in the Sedona vicinity. The formations appear to glow in brilliant orange and red when illuminated by the rising or setting sun.

Although all of Sedona is considered to be a vortex, there are specific sites where the energy is said to crackle most intensely. The four best known Sedona vortexes are found at Airport Mesa, Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, and Boynton Canyon. Each spot radiates its own particular energy. People travel from all across the globe to experience the mysterious cosmic forces that are said to emanate from the red rocks.

Cathedral Rock and the Chapel of the Holy Cross have been identified as feminine (energy entering the earth), while Airport Mesa and Bell Rock have been identified as masculine (energy coming out of the earth). Boynton Canyon combines both masculine and feminine energies.

The Sinagua were a pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 650 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.

Completed in 1956, the Chapel of the Holy Cross sits high atop the red rocks in Sedona Arizona. Inspired and commissioned by local rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude, the chapel's most prominent feature is a cross which appears wedged into the rocks. If you stare directly at the chapel, it seems to blend seamlessly, almost as if the rocks had parted to allow space for it.

One of the many unique sights in the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness is a series of natural pools, reached by way of an easy hike from Soldier Pass Trail. The Seven Sacred Pools are naturally carved out of ocher colored sandstone and fed by a seasonal stream.

Sedona is home to the only McDonald's arch in the world that isn't yellow. When the McDonald's was built there in 1993, city officials believed that a bright yellow M would clash with the surrounding red rocks and distract from the natural beauty of the area, so they opted for a more pleasing, turquoise color.

Stretching as far back as 1923, Sedona's red rocks were a fixture in major Hollywood productions, including films such as Angel and the Badman, Blood on the Moon, and 3:10 to Yuma. However, the surroundings were typically represented on film as the terrain of Texas, California, Nevada, and even Canada.

Cathedral Rock was called "Court House Rock" on some early maps, and Courthouse Butte was called "Church House Rock", which has caused endless confusion ever since.