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, the second most populous urban agglomeration in the United States. 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. The Colorado Desert and the Colorado River are located on southern California's eastern border with Arizona, and San Bernardino County shares a border with Nevada to the northeast. Southern California's southern border with Baja California is part of the Mexico–United States border.
Kern County is located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 839,631. Its county seat is Bakersfield.
The Central Valley is a broad, flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is 40 to 60 miles wide and stretches approximately 450 miles (720 km) from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel with the Pacific coast. It covers approximately 18,000 square miles (47,000 km2), about 11% of California's land area. The valley is bounded by the Coast Ranges to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east.
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, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, 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 but 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, originally Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is a 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 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 Bacon Hills are a low mountain range of the Transverse Ranges System, located in western Kern County, California.
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 Little Signal Hills are a low mountain range in the Transverse Ranges, in southeastern Kern 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.
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.
