California

I

Introduction

California, state in the western United States, bordering the Pacific Ocean. The third largest state in the Union, California covers an area of great physical diversity in which uplands dominate the landscape. The mountains, hills, ridges, and peaks of California flank the coastline, rise to nearly 4,600 m (15,000 ft) in the towering Sierra Nevada, encircle the great fertile basin of the Central Valley, and separate the desert into innumerable basins. However, despite the physical dominance and economic value of the uplands, California’s urban areas and economic production are concentrated in the valleys and lowlands, such as in the huge metropolitan region centered on Los Angeles, the state’s largest and the nation’s second largest city. Manufacturing, agriculture, and related activities are the principal sources of income. They are based in large part on the state’s wealth of natural resources, its productive farmlands, its large and highly skilled labor force, and its ability to market its output both at home and abroad.

California’s size, complexity, and economic productivity make it preeminently a state of superlatives. It has the lowest point in the country, in Death Valley, and the highest U.S. peak outside Alaska, Mount Whitney. Among the 50 states it has the greatest number of national parks and national forests, and the only stand of giant sequoias. Its annual farm output is greater in value than that of any other state, and it leads the rest of the nation in the production of many crops. It is the leading state in volume of annual construction and manufacturing. California has more people than any other state and more automobiles, more civil aircraft, and more students enrolled in universities and colleges.

Between the late 1940s and late 1980s the rate of growth and actual growth of California’s population and economy were phenomenal compared with other states. From 1990 to 2000, however, the growth rate slowed somewhat. California’s growth has given rise to, or aggravated, several major problems. Much of the growth occurred in the dry south where water shortages must be offset by vast, expensive public projects delivering water from the wetter north. Urban centers extended outward into good farmland, forever removing it from food production. In addition, as population continues to increase, California is faced with the problem of providing its inhabitants with more schools, hospitals, water, highways, recreational facilities, and other services.

The name California was first used to designate the region by the Spanish expedition led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, as it sailed northward along the coast from Mexico in 1542. The name itself was probably derived from a popular Spanish novel published in 1510 in which a fictional island paradise named California was described. The state’s official nickname is the Golden State, referring to the gold rush, which played a central role in California’s entry into the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. The nickname also suggests the state’s golden fields and sunshine.

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II

Physical Geography of California

California, the third largest state in the Union, has a total area of 423,971 sq km (163,696 sq mi), including 6,926 sq km (2,674 sq mi) of inland water and 575 sq km (222 sq mi) of coastal waters over which it has jurisdiction. The state is roughly rectangular in shape, although the southern two-thirds bends in a dogleg toward the east. It has a maximum distance north to south of 1,052 km (654 mi) and an east-to-west extent of 945 km (587 mi), although even locations along the state’s eastern border are less than 350 km (220 mi) from the ocean. California’s mean elevation is about 880 m (2,900 ft).

Much of California lies in a geologically unstable area, crisscrossed by fault, or fracture, lines in the Earth’s crust. The great San Andreas Fault extends for 1,000 km (600 mi) northwestward from the Imperial Valley to Point Arena and out to sea. This fault line has caused several notable earthquakes in the recorded history of California. The most widely publicized was that of April 18, 1906, which resulted in the destruction of central San Francisco. Although major earthquakes are rare, landslides, mudflows, minor tremors, and cracks in the ground occur regularly.

A

Natural Regions

California lies within four major natural regions, or physiographic provinces. They are the Pacific Border province, the Sierra-Cascade province, the Basin and Range province, and the Lower Californian province.

The Pacific Border province, also called the Coastal Uplands, extends nearly the entire length of western California. It can be subdivided into four sections, the Klamath Mountains, the Coast Ranges, the Transverse Ranges, and the Great Central Valley.

The Klamath Mountains, partly in Oregon, occupy the northwestern corner of California. They include a number of separate ranges, such as the Salmon and Trinity mountains, and form a rugged forested area that rises to 2,700 m (9,000 ft).

The Coast Ranges parallel the Pacific Coast in a complex series of ridges and valleys. The only major low-lying pass through the ranges is formed by San Francisco Bay and its tributary bays, as they carry the waters of California’s largest river, the Sacramento, into the Pacific Ocean at the Golden Gate. The principal range is the Diablo Range, which flanks the Central Valley and rises to 1,500 m (5,000 ft) above sea level. Between the interior Diablo Range and the coastal Santa Lucia Range lies the long Salinas valley.

The Transverse Ranges, so named because they run transverse or perpendicular (west to east) to the north-south oriented Coast Ranges, extend from Point Conception, on the coast, roughly eastward to the Mojave Desert. These generally narrow ranges increase in elevation toward the east, where Mount San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains rises to 3,505 m (11,499 ft) above sea level. The Transverse Ranges partly enclose low but often hilly Los Angeles and its suburbs.

The Great Central Valley is a vast structural depression that extends from northwest to southeast for 640 km (400 mi), with an average width of 80 km (50 mi). The valley is surrounded by mountain ranges that rise steeply from the valley floor on the west and more gently on the east. The Central Valley, with its flat land and rich alluvial soils, is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The northern part of the valley is called the Sacramento Valley, and the southern part is called the San Joaquin Valley.

The Sierra-Cascade province is, in California, a vast upland area that extends from Oregon to the Transverse Ranges. It is subdivided into two sections, the southern Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada.

The southern Cascade Range, in northern California, consists of a rugged belt of ranges that includes volcanic peaks and extensive lava flows. Mount Shasta, which is a dormant volcano, rises to 4,317 m (14,162 ft) above sea level. Just to the south of Lassen Volcanic National Park the densely forested Cascades meet the Sierra Nevada.

The Sierra Nevada, nearly all of which lies in California, is an imposing mountain barrier that extends along the eastern edge of the Central Valley. It is primarily a vast tilted granite block, with very steep slopes facing east and longer, gentler slopes facing west. The highest section, known as the High Sierra, includes Mount Whitney, which rises to 4,418 m (14,494 ft) and is the highest peak in the United States outside of Alaska. Forests cover large areas on the lower western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. At the southern end of the Sierra Nevada the Tehachapi Mountains curve southwestward to join the Coast Ranges and the Transverse Ranges.

The Basin and Range province is an arid area of mountain ranges, basins, and deserts. In California it is represented primarily by parts of the Great Basin and Sonoran Desert sections. Within the Great Basin lies Death Valley, whose lowest elevation, 86 m (282 ft) below sea level, is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. The Sonoran Desert section is characterized by numerous flat plains separated by low but rugged ranges. It includes the extensive Mojave, or Mohave, Desert. Also in this province is the Colorado Desert, roughly extensive with the Salton Trough. The trough is a depression that extends from the Gulf of California, in Mexico, to the Transverse Ranges in the northwest. This arid depression, rimmed by several mountain ranges, includes the Imperial Valley, the Salton Sea, and the Coachella Valley.

The Lower California province is a northern extension of Mexico’s peninsula of Baja California. The province is dominated by occasional peaks but generally rolling mountain and valley terrain of the Peninsular Ranges. The northern end of the granitic Peninsular Ranges culminates in Mount San Jacinto (3,293 m/10,804 ft), which overlooks the resort city of Palm Springs to the east.

B

Rivers and Lakes

California’s principal river systems are formed by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, which drain the Great Central Valley. The Sacramento, the longest river within the state, flows generally southward for 607 km (377 mi) from its source at the base of Mount Shasta in the southern Cascade Mountains to its junction with the San Joaquin. The Pit River is the longest tributary of the Sacramento, but shorter tributaries, such as the Feather and American rivers, carry larger volumes of water. The San Joaquin River rises in the Sierra Nevada near Yosemite National Park and flows generally northward for 560 km (350 mi) to join the Sacramento River. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers unite to form a large inland delta that drains to Suisun Bay, the eastern arm of San Francisco Bay. Numerous mountain streams descend from the Sierra Nevada to join the two rivers. A number of short streams rise on the eastern flanks of the Coast Ranges, but they usually run dry before reaching either river.

The rivers of the Coast Ranges in California are relatively short, except for the 400-km (250-mi) long Klamath River, which rises in Oregon and flows through northwestern California. Farther south the Salinas River rises in the Coast Ranges and flows northwestward, roughly parallel to the coast, through a broad fertile valley to Monterey Bay.

The major river in southern California is the Colorado River, one of the chief rivers of the western United States. It follows the Arizona-California state line before flowing into the Gulf of California, in Mexico.

California has several thousand lakes, most of which are small. The largest is the Salton Sea, a salty lake in the south that lies 71 m (233 ft) below sea level and covers 943 sq km (364 sq mi). Lake Tahoe, high in the Sierra Nevada, is on the California-Nevada state line and is one of the deepest lakes in the United States. Numerous other lakes have been created by the damming of rivers. These include Folsom Reservoir on the American River, Lake Oroville on the Feather River, and Pine Flat Reservoir on the Kings River, all in the Sierra Nevada, and Clair Engle Lake on the Trinity River, in the Klamath Mountains. Shasta Lake, behind Shasta Dam on the upper Sacramento River, is the largest reservoir in the state, and along with Clair Engle and Whiskeytown lakes, forms one of the largest national recreation areas in the nation.

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