PHOENIX — Editor's Note: The above video is from an earlier broadcast.
Arizona is one of six states where Walmart will soon begin flying drones to deliver orders to its customers.
The retail giant announced Tuesday it was expanding its DroneUp delivery service to 34 sites in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia by the end of this year.
For a delivery fee of $3.99, Walmart customers at these sites can order a collection of items weighing less than 10 pounds and have them flown via drone to their homes within 30 minutes.
Once a customer makes an order through DroneUp, the order is fulfilled at the local store and a drone delivers the items straight to the customer's yard by using a cable to gently lower the package to the ground.
Walmart has spent the last few months conducting drone deliveries at existing sites before deciding to introduce the service at new locations.
"Participating stores will house a DroneUp delivery hub inclusive of a team of certified pilots, operating within FAA guidelines, that safely manage flight operations for deliveries," the company wrote in a statement.
The drone expansion has the potential to serve up to four million households, Walmart said.
Walmart has not yet specified when exactly the new delivery service will begin at the Arizona sites.
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How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.
The county was named after the Maricopa, or Piipaash, Native American Tribe.