Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria.
The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south to Mt Pinos in the east. Their territory includes three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel; the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source.
Goleta is a city in southern Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It was incorporated as a city in 2002, after a long period as the largest unincorporated populated area in the county. As of the 2000 census, the census-designated place had a total population of 55,204. A significant portion of the census territory of 2000 did not incorporate into the new city. The population of Goleta was 32,690 at the 2020 census. It is known for being near the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus.
Isla Vista is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California, in the United States. As of 2020 census, the community had a population of 15,500. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined the community as a census-designated place (CDP). The majority of residents are college students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, or Santa Barbara City College. The beachside community of Isla Vista lies on a flat plateau about 30 feet (9 m) in elevation, separated from the beach by a bluff.
The Channel Islands are an eight-island archipelago located within the Southern California Bight in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California. They define the Santa Barbara Channel, which sits between the islands and the Californian mainland. The four Northern Channel Islands are part of the Transverse Ranges geologic province, and the four Southern Channel Islands are part of the Peninsular Ranges province. Five of the islands are within the Channel Islands National Park, and the waters surrounding these islands make up Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The Nature Conservancy was instrumental in establishing the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
Channel Islands National Park consists of five of the eight Channel Islands off the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. Although the islands are close to the shore of the densely populated state, they have been relatively undeveloped. The park covers 249,561 acres (100,994 ha), of which 79,019 acres (31,978 ha) are federal land.
Santa Cruz Island is located off the southwestern coast of Ventura, California, United States. It is the largest island in California and largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands archipelago and Channel Islands National Park. Forming part of the northern group of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz is 22 miles (35 km) long and 2 to 6 miles wide with an area of 61,764.6 acres (249.952 km2).
Santa Barbara Island is a small island of the Channel Islands archipelago in Southern California. It is protected within Channel Islands National Park, and its marine ecosystem is part of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
San Clemente Island is the southernmost of the Channel Islands of California. It is owned and operated by the United States Navy, and is a part of Los Angeles County. It is administered by Naval Base Coronado. It is 21 miles (34 km) long and has 147.13 km2 (56.81 sq mi) of land. The 2018 census estimates 148 military and civilian personnel reside on the island. The city of San Clemente in Orange County, California is named after the island.
The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary is a sanctuary off the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in Southern California 350 miles south of San Francisco and 95 miles north of Los Angeles. It was designated in 1980 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Santa Rosa Island is the second largest of the Channel Islands of California at 53,195 acres. Santa Rosa is located about 26 miles (42 km) off the coast of Santa Barbara, California in Santa Barbara County and is part of Channel Islands National Park.
Refugio State Beach is a protected state beach park in California, United States, approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of Santa Barbara. One of three state parks along the Gaviota Coast, it is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) west of El Capitán State Beach. During the summer months, the Junior Life Guard program resides at the beach during the day.
The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters at the time, and now ranks third after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez spills. It remains the largest oil spill to have occurred in the waters off California.
The history of Santa Barbara, California, begins approximately 13,000 years ago with the arrival of the first Native Americans. The Spanish came in the 18th century to occupy and Christianize the area, which became part of Mexico following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, the expanding United States acquired the town along with the rest of California as a result of defeating Mexico in the Mexican–American War. Santa Barbara transformed then from a small cluster of adobes into successively a rowdy, lawless Gold Rush era town; a Victorian-era health resort; a center of silent film production; an oil boom town; a town supporting a military base and hospital during World War II; and finally it became the economically diverse resort destination it remains in the present day. Twice destroyed by earthquakes, in 1812 and 1925, it was rebuilt after the second one in a Spanish Colonial style.
The Coal Oil Point seep field (COP) in the Santa Barbara Channel offshore from Goleta, California, is a marine petroleum seep area of about three square kilometres, within the Offshore South Ellwood Oil Field and stretching from the coastline southward more than three kilometers (1.9 mi). Major seeps are located in water depths from 20 to 80 meters. The seep field is among the largest and best studied areas of active marine seepage in the world. These perennial and continuous oil and gas seeps have been active on the northern edge of the Santa Barbara Channel for at least 500,000 years. The combined seeps in the field release about 40 tons of methane per day and about 19 tons of reactive organic gas ; about twice the hydrocarbon air pollution released by all the cars and trucks in Santa Barbara County in 1990. The liquid petroleum produces a slick that is many kilometres long and when degraded by evaporation and weathering, produces tar balls which wash up on the beaches for miles around.
The Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field is a large oil and gas field underneath the Santa Barbara Channel about eight miles southeast of Santa Barbara, California. Discovered in 1968, and with a cumulative production of over 260 million barrels of oil, it is the 24th-largest oil field within California and the adjacent waters. As it is in the Pacific Ocean outside of the 3-mile tidelands limit, it is a federally leased field, regulated by the U.S. Department of the Interior rather than the California Department of Conservation. It is entirely produced from four drilling and production platforms in the channel, which as of 2009 were operated by Dos Cuadras Offshore Resources (DCOR), LLC, a private firm based in Ventura. A blowout near one of these platforms – Unocal's Platform A – was responsible for the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that was formative for the modern environmental movement, and spurred the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act.
Mescalitan Island is a mesalike island located about 10 miles (16 km) west of Santa Barbara near the outlet of the Goleta Slough into the Pacific Ocean.
The Bombardment of Ellwood during World War II was a naval attack by a Japanese submarine against United States coastal targets near Santa Barbara, California. Though the damage was minimal, the event was key in triggering the West Coast invasion scare and influenced the decision to intern Japanese-Americans. The event also marked the first shelling of the North American mainland during the conflict.
The Refugio oil spill on May 19, 2015, contaminated one of the most biologically diverse areas of the West Coast of the United States with 142,800 U.S. gallons of crude oil. The corroded pipeline that caused the spill closed indefinitely, resulting in financial impacts to the county estimated as high as $74 million as it and a related pipeline remained out of service for three years. The cost of the cleanup was estimated by the company to be $96 million with overall expenses including expected legal claims and potential settlements to be around $257 million.
The Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, California is a rural coastline along the Santa Barbara Channel roughly bounded by Goleta Point on the south and the north boundary of the county on the north. This last undeveloped stretch of Southern California coastline consists of dramatic bluffs, isolated beaches and terraced grasslands.
