Southern California is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area as well as the Inland Empire. The region generally contains ten of California's 58 counties: Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties.
Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield.
California City is a city located in northern Antelope Valley in Kern County, California, United States. It is 100 miles (160 km) north of the city of Los Angeles, and the population was 14,973 at the 2020 census. Covering 203.63 square miles (527.4 km2), California City has the third-largest land area of any city in the state of California, and is the largest city in California, by land area, that is not a county seat. It is the 43rd-largest city in the United States by land area.
The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region of lava beds and playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt playa 100 miles (160 km) north of Reno, Nevada, that encompasses more than 300,000 acres (120,000 ha) of land and contains more than 120 miles (200 km) of historic trails. It is in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan.
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, United States, and the southeast portion of California's Kern County, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the San Gabriel Mountains. The valley was named for the pronghorns that roamed there until they were all eliminated in the 1880s, mostly by hunting, or resettled in other areas. The principal cities in the Antelope Valley are Palmdale and Lancaster.
The Kern River, previously Río de San Felipe, later La Porciúncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately 165 miles (270 km) long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It is the southernmost major river system in the Sierra Nevada, and is the only major river in the Sierra that drains in a southerly direction.
The Lost Hills are a low mountain range in the Transverse Ranges, near Lost Hills, California and Interstate 5 in western Kern County, California.
The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay Area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley area at its southern end.
The Temblor Range is a mountain range within the California Coast Ranges, at the southwestern extremity of the San Joaquin Valley in California in the United States. It runs in a northwest-southeasterly direction along the borders of Kern County and San Luis Obispo County. The name of the range is from Spanish temblor meaning "tremor", referring to earthquakes. The San Andreas Fault Zone runs parallel to the range at the base of its western slope, on the eastern side of the Carrizo Plain, while the Antelope Plain, location of the enormous Midway Sunset, South Belridge, and Cymric oil fields, lies to the northeast.
The Elk Hills are a low mountain range in the Transverse Ranges, in western Kern County, California.
The Elkhorn Hills are a low mountain range in the Transverse Ranges, in eastern San Luis Obispo County, California.
The Rosamond Hills are a low mountain range in the Mojave Desert, in eastern Kern County, California.
The Shale Hills are a low mountain range in the interior California Coast Ranges, in western Kern County, California.
The Telephone Hills are a low mountain range in the interior California Coast Ranges, in western Kern County, California.
Muroc is a former settlement in Kern County, California in the Mojave Desert.
Alpine, more fully Alpine Springs and also called Harold, was an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California located 2 miles south of where Palmdale is now.
Dagany Gap, a gap in the Pyramid Hills of Kern County, California. It is bounded on the west by Sunflower Valley and on the northeast by the Kettleman Plain and southeast by the Antelope Plain. It was named for a local settler who held land in the vicinity, Ralph Arnold Dagany.
Salt Spring, originally, Aguaje de la Brea, a spring in the Antelope Plain on the southeast end of Pyramid Hills, 0.6 miles south of Emigrant Hill and 1.5 miles north of Wagon Wheel Mountain in the Pyramid Hills of Kern County, California. Its location appears on a 1914 USGS Topographic map of Lost Hills. Salt Spring is located just east of the Pyramid Hills and the Devils Den Oil Field, 3 miles southwest of Devils Den, close by the south side of Kecks Road, 0.23 miles east of the California Aqueduct, enclosed by a fence.
Point of Rocks is a mountain range in Kern County, California.
Bitterwater Creek, originally named Arroyo de Matarano, is a stream in eastern San Luis Obispo County and northwestern Kern County, central California.
