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California is the most populous state of the United States. Located on the Pacific coast of North America, it is bordered by Oregon, Nevada and Arizona in the United States, and Baja California in Mexico. The state's four largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. California is known for its Mediterranean climate and ethnically diverse population. The state has 58 counties.
Inhabited by indigenous people for millennia, Alta California was first colonized by the Spanish Empire in 1769, and after Mexican independence in 1821, continued as part of Mexico. Following one brief week as the independent California Republic in 1846, and the conclusion of the Mexican-American war in 1848, California was annexed by the United States and was admitted to the Union as the thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.
California's diverse geography ranges from the sandy beaches of the Pacific coast to the rugged, snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the east. The central portion of the state is dominated by the Central Valley, one of the most vital agricultural areas in the country. The Sierra Nevada contains Yosemite Valley, famous for its glacially-carved domes, and Sequoia National Park, home to the largest living organisms on Earth, the giant sequoia trees, and the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney. The tallest living things on Earth, the ancient redwood trees, dot the coastline, mainly north of San Francisco. California is also home to the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley. Bristlecone pines located in the White Mountains are the oldest known trees in the world; one has an age of 4,700 years.
The California Gold Rush, beginning in 1848, dramatically changed California with an influx of population and an economic boom. The early part of the 20th century was marked by Los Angeles becoming the center of the entertainment industry, in addition to the growth of a large tourism sector in the state. The Central Valley is home to California's important agricultural industry, the largest of any state. Other important industries have included the aerospace and oil industries. In recent decades, California has become a global leader in computers and information technology. If California were a country, its economy would rank among the ten largest in the world.
California History
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America; the area was inhabited by more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans. Large, settled populations lived on the coast and hunted sea mammals, fished for salmon, and gathered shellfish, while groups in the interior hunted terrestrial game and gathered nuts, acorns, and berries. California groups also were diverse in their political organization with bands, tribes, tribelets, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage, and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups.
The first European to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was Juan RodrÃguez Cabrillo, in 1542, sailing for the Spanish Empire. Some 37 years later, the English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila Galleons on their return trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565. Sebastián VizcaÃno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain.
Spanish missionaries set up some twenty California Missions along the coast of what became known as Alta California (Upper California), together with small towns and presidios. The first mission in Alta California was established at San Diego in 1769. In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave Mexico (including California), independence from Spain; for the next twenty-five years, Alta California remained a remote northern province of the nation of Mexico. Cattle ranches, or ranchos, emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. After Mexican independence from Spain, the chain of missions became the property of the Mexican government, and were secularized by 1832. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Spanish-speaking Californians) who had received land grants.
Beginning in the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive, harbingers of the great changes that would later sweep California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts surrounding California. In this period, Imperial Russia explored the California coast, and established a trading post at Fort Ross.
In 1846, at the outset of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the California Republic was founded and the Bear Flag was flown in an attempt to control California, which featured a grizzly bear and a star. The attempt to form this republic came to a sudden end, however, when Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into San Francisco Bay and began the military occupation of California by the United States.
Following a series of battles in Southern California, including the Battle of Dominguez Rancho, the Battle of San Pascual, the Battle of Rio San Gabriel and the Battle of La Mesa, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed on January 13, 1847, ending hostilities in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, the region was divided between Mexico and the United States. The western part of the U.S. portion, Alta California, was to become the U.S. state of California, while the lower region, Baja California, remained in the possession of Mexico.
In 1848, the non-native population of California has been estimated to be no more than 15,000. But after gold was discovered, the population burgeoned with U.S. citizens, Europeans, and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. In 1850, California was admitted to the United States as a free state (one in which slavery was prohibited).
The seat of government for California under Mexican rule was located at Monterey from 1777 until 1849, at which time the Constitutional Convention was first held. Among the duties was the task of determining the location for the capital. The first legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850-1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852-1853) and nearby Benicia (1853-1854), although these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854.
At first, travel between California and the central and eastern parts of the United States was time-consuming and dangerous. A more direct connection came in 1869 with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. After this rail link was established, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens came west, where new Californians were discovering that land in the state, if irrigated during the dry summer months, was extremely well-suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Citrus was widely grown (especially oranges), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production.
During the early 20th century, migration to California accelerated with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to become the most populous state in the Union. From 1965 to the present, the population changed radically and became one of the most diverse in the world. The state is regarded as a world center of engineering businesses, the entertainment and music industries, and U.S. agricultural production.
Famous for its mild climate, beautiful and varied geography, diverse culture and progressive politics, and home of Hollywood and, of course, Disneyland, California is the world's most wonderful place to live or to visit.
What People Have to Say About California
"As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future." ~ Alison Lurie ~
"California has become the first American state where there is no majority race, and we're doing just fine. If you look around the room, you can see a microcosm of what we can do in the world. . . . You should be hopeful on balance about the future. But it's like any future since the beginning of time -- you're going to have to make it." ~ Bill Clinton ~
"There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California." ~ Edward Abbey ~
"I have seen purer liquors, better segars, finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtesans here in San Francisco than in any other place I have ever visited; and it is my unbiased opinion that California can and does furnish the best bad things that are available in America." ~ Hinton Helper ~
"Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look." ~ Henry Miller ~