Although geographically smaller than Northern California in land area, Southern California has a higher population, with 23.76 million residents as of the 2020 census. The sparsely populated desert region of California occupies a significant portion (part of which has even been proposed to be split into a new county due to cultural, economic and geographic differences relative to the rest of the more urban region) of the area: the Colorado Desert, along with the Colorado River, is located on Southern California's eastern border with Arizona, and the Mojave Desert shares a border with Nevada to the northeast. Southern California's southern border with Baja California is part of the Mexico–United States border.
Within Southern California are two major cities, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as three of the country's largest metropolitan areas.[7] With a population of approximately 4 million, Los Angeles is the most populous city in California and the second most populous in the United States. South of Los Angeles and with a population of approximately 1.4 million is San Diego, the second most populous city in the state and the eighth most populous in the nation.
Southern California is generally considered the area of California south of the latitude 35°45',[12] approximately one-third of the state, formed by the northern boundaries of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino counties, which are not exactly a straight line. Another definition for Southern California uses Point Conception and the Tehachapi Mountains as the northern geographical barriers, especially when defining California's bioregions.[13][14] In this definition, Owens Valley and Death Valley are part of the Southern California desert system.[15] Because of the barrier formed by the Tehachapi and Sierra Nevada ranges, cartographer George Wheeler observed in 1876 that Northern California was better connected to Oregon and Nevada than it was to Southern California.[16]
Topography of the border region
Following the acquisition of the territory of California by the United States, several pro-slavery politicians attempted to arrange the division of Alta California at 36 degrees, 30 minutes, the line of the Missouri Compromise. Instead, the passing of the Compromise of 1850 enabled California to be admitted to the Union as a free state, preventing the southern half of California from becoming its own separate slave state.
Subsequently, Californians (dissatisfied with inequitable taxes and land laws) and pro-slavery Southerners in the lightly populated "cow counties" of Southern California attempted three times in the 1850s to achieve a separate statehood or territorial status separate from Northern California. The last attempt, the Pico Act of 1859, was passed by the California State Legislature and signed by State Governor John B. Weller. It was approved overwhelmingly by nearly 75 percent of voters to form the proposed Territory of Colorado. This territory was to include a portion of the much larger Tulare County and all of San Luis Obispo County. The proposal was sent to Washington, D.C., with a strong advocate in Senator Milton Latham. However, the secession crisis following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the subsequent American Civil War led to the proposal never coming to a vote.[17][18]
In 1900, the Los Angeles Times defined Southern California as including "the seven counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, and Santa Barbara." This definition left out San Luis Obispo and Kern counties.[19]
Southern California was the name of a proposed new state which failed to get on the 2018 California ballot. The ballot measure proposed splitting the existing state into three parts.[20]
Percentage of households with incomes above $150,000 across LA County census tracts
Southern California consists of a heavily developed urban environment, home to some of the largest urban areas in the state, along with the Deserts of California (part of which was even proposed to become a new county due to cultural, economic and geographic differences relative to the rest of the more urban region)[33][34][35] that have been left undeveloped. It is the third most populated megalopolis in the United States, after the Great Lakes megalopolis and the Northeast megalopolis. Much of Southern California is famous for its large, spread-out, suburban communities and use of automobiles and highways. The dominant areas are Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Riverside–San Bernardino, each of which are the centers of their respective metropolitan areas, composed of numerous smaller cities and communities. The urban area is also host to an international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan region, created by the urban area spilling over into Baja California.
The skyline of Downtown Los Angeles as seen at sunset in October 2006. Standing 1,018ft (310m) high, with 73 floors, the U.S. Bank Tower was the West Coast's tallest building when it was built in 1989, until the neighboring Wilshire Grand Center surpassed it in 2017.
Most of Southern California has a Mediterranean-like climate, with warm and dry summers, mild and wet winters, where cool weather and freezing temperatures are rare. Southern California contains other types of climates, including semi-arid, desert and mountain, with infrequent rain and many sunny days. Summers are hot or warm, and dry, while winters are mild, and rainfall is low to moderate depending on the area. Rain is infrequent, but is often heavy when it does occur, making flash floods an aspect of living in Southern California. This climatic pattern was alluded to in the hit song "It Never Rains (In Southern California)". While snow is very rare in lower elevations, mountains above 5,000 feet (1,500m) receive plentiful snowfall in the winter.
Southern California consists of one of the more varied collections of geologic, topographic, and natural ecosystem landscapes in a diversity outnumbering other major regions in the state and country. The region spans from Pacific Ocean islands, shorelines, beaches, and coastal plains, through the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges with their peaks, and into the large and small interior valleys, to the vast deserts of California.
Each year, Southern California has about 10,000 earthquakes. Nearly all of them are too small to be felt. Only several hundred have been greater than magnitude (Mw) 3.0, and only about 15–20 have been greater than Mw 4.0.[38] California as a whole enacted the Alquist Priolo Special Studies Zone Act in the wake of the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. The act prohibits new construction of residential buildings closer than 50 feet (15m) from a surface rupturing active fault zone. In addition, the act improved safety by requiring new structures (both residential and commercial) to be seismically retrofitted. It also required existing infrastructure to comply.
Since 1972, numerous large magnitude earthquakes have struck Southern California with little widespread damage in part due to act. However, exceptions can be noted for epicenters that lie directly on top of densely populated regions such as the Mw 6.7 1994 Northridge Earthquake and, to a lesser extent, the smaller Mw 5.5 2008 Chino Hills earthquake. The Northridge earthquake occurred on a blind-thrust fault directly underneath the San Fernando Valley, which until the earthquake was previously undiscovered. Seismic retrofitting of existing and new construction is aimed to prevent damage and save lives in the aftermath of a major quake, but it cannot guarantee that buildings will be unscathed if the epicenter is relatively close by.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake was particularly destructive, causing a substantial number of deaths, injuries, and structural collapses. The quake caused the most property damage of any earthquake in U.S. history at an estimated $20 billion.[39]
Many Southern California faults are able to produce a Mw 6.7 earthquake or greater, such as the San Andreas Fault, which can produce Mw 8.0 or greater. The largest known earthquake in California was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake that ruptured 200+ miles (320+ kilometers) of the San Andreas Fault from Parkfield to Wrightwood. With a recurrence interval of roughly 150 years, this part of the San Andreas fault is well within its window to produce another large earthquake. Along with the southern section of the San Andreas (in the Palm Springs region, which has not ruptured in ~400 years), the entire Southern California portion of the San Andreas Fault is ready to produce a powerful earthquake in the near future.
Note: Earthquakes with epicenters in the Los Angeles Metro Area are marked with the (#) symbol. Other earthquakes mentioned indicates shaking was felt in the region.
Sources: 1790–1990, 2000, 2010, 2020[22][41][42] Chart does not include Indigenous population figures. Studies indicate that the Native American population in California in 1850 was close to 150,000 before declining to 15,000 by 1900.[43]
As of the 2020 United States Census, Southern California has a population of 23,762,904. Despite a reputation for high growth rates, Southern California's population has grown slower than the state average since the 2000s. This is due to California's growth becoming concentrated in the northern part of the state as result of a stronger, tech-oriented economy in the Bay Area and an emerging Greater Sacramento region.
Los Angeles (with a population of approximately 3.9 million people) and San Diego (at nearly 1.4 million people) are the two largest cities in all of California, and are among the top eight largest cities in the United States.[49] In Southern California, there are also 14 cities with more than 200,000 residents and 48 cities over 100,000 residents. Many of Southern California's most developed cities lie along or in close proximity to the coast, with the exception of San Bernardino and Riverside.
Southern California has drifted left since 2004, and is solidly Democrat. Kern County remains the sole county to vote for the GOP, with Orange County having been Democrat since 2012. However in the Trump era, Trump was able to make serious inroads in the Latino counties, resulting in flipping 3 Hispanic majority counties, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial.
United States presidential election results for Southern California
Southern California is one of the largest economies in the United States. It is dominated by, and heavily dependent upon, the abundance of petroleum, as opposed to other regions where automobiles are not nearly as dominant, due to the vast majority of transport that runs on this fuel. Southern California is famous for tourism and the entertainment industry. Other industries include software, automotive, aerospace, finance, biomedical, ports and regional logistics. The region was a leader in the housing bubble from 2001 to 2007, and has been heavily impacted by the housing crash.
Since the 1920s, motion pictures, petroleum, and aircraft manufacturing have been major industries. In one of the richest agricultural regions in the U.S., cattle and citrus were major industries until farmlands were turned into suburbs. Although military spending cutbacks have had an impact, aerospace continues to be a major factor.[50]
Six of the seven lines of the commuter rail system, Metrolink, run out of downtown Los Angeles, connecting Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and San Diego counties with the other line connecting San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties directly.
California is a U.S. state on the western coast of North America. Covering an area of 163,696 sq mi (423,970 km2), California is among the most geographically diverse states. The Sierra Nevada, the fertile farmlands of the Central Valley, and the arid Mojave Desert of the south are some of the geographic features of this U.S. state. It is home to some of the world's most exceptional trees: the tallest, most massive, and oldest. It is also home to both the highest and lowest points in the 48 contiguous states.
Greater Los Angeles is the most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. state of California, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County in the east, with the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County at its center, and Orange County to the southeast. The Los Angeles–Anaheim–Riverside combined statistical area (CSA) covers 33,954 square miles (87,940 km2), making it the largest metropolitan region in the United States by land area. The contiguous urban area is 2,281 square miles (5,910 km2), whereas the remainder mostly consists of mountain and desert areas. With an estimated population of over 18.3 million, it is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, behind New York, as well as one of the largest megacities in the world.
Scouting in California has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs related to their environments.
The State Scenic Highway System in the U.S. state of California is a list of highways, mainly state highways, that have been designated by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) as scenic highways. They are marked by the state flower, a California poppy, inside either a rectangle for state-maintained highways or a pentagon for county highways.
A vast network of interconnected freeways in the megaregion of Southern California serves a population of over 23 million people. The Master Plan of Metropolitan Los Angeles Freeways was adopted by the Regional Planning Commission in 1947 and construction began in the early 1950s. The plan hit opposition and funding limitations in the 1970s, and by 2004, only some 61% of the original planned network had been completed.
Districts in California geographically divide the U.S. state into overlapping regions for political and administrative purposes.
The Southern California Rugby Football Union (SCRFU) is the Geographical Union (GU) governing body within USA Rugby that governs adult rugby union teams in Southern California, the Las Vegas metropolitan area, Arizona, and New Mexico. The SCRFU includes numerous men's and women's, leagues representing all levels of competitive play. College rugby is run by the college conferences and Youth Rugby is governed by Southern California Youth Rugby (SCYR). During the busiest part of the 15s seasons, southern California will have over 80 matches in a weekend. The current board of SCRFU is Geno Mazza (president), Patrick Rashidian, Kevin Holmquist (treasurer) and Bradley Davidson (secretary).
California's State Assembly districts are numbered 1st through 80th, generally in north-to-south order.
Greater Los Angeles has a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure, which serves as a regional, national and international hub for passenger and freight traffic. The transportation system of Greater Los Angeles includes the United States' largest port complex, seven commuter rail lines, Amtrak service, a subway system within the city of Los Angeles, and numerous highways. Los Angeles is integrated into the Interstate Highway System by Interstate 5, Interstate 10, and Interstate 15, along with numerous auxiliary highways and state routes. Bus service is also included locally within the area by numerous local government agencies. Subways and light commuter rail lines are present within Los Angeles proper, allowing mass transportation within the city. Commuter railroads are run by Metrolink. Amtrak has numerous railroad lines that connect Los Angeles to the rest of the country.
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) of six of the ten counties in Southern California, serving Imperial County, Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Ventura County. San Diego County's MPO is the San Diego Association of Governments, which is an unrelated agency.
Deinandra is a genus of flowering plants in the tribe Madieae within the family Asteraceae. Such a genus is not recognized as distinct by all authorities; its species are often treated as members of the genus Hemizonia.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of California:
The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely-available, archive of digitized California newspapers; it is accessible through the project's website. The collection contains over six million pages from over forty-two million articles. The project is part of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California Riverside.
In the U.S. state of California, a congestion management agency (CMA) is a county-level government agency responsible for a comprehensive transportation improvement program that reduces traffic congestion and reduces transportation-related air pollution through local land-use planning.
↑ "Figures Show California's Motoring Supremacy". Touring Topics. 8 (2). Los Angeles, California: Automobile Club of Southern California: 38–39. March 1916. Archived from the original on March 15, 2023. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
↑ Sharp, Robert Phillip; Glazner, Allen F. (1997). Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley. Mountain Press Publishing. p.44. ISBN9780878423620.
↑ California, Historical Society of Southern (1901). The Quarterly, Volumes 5-6. Historical Society of Southern California. p.223. Archived from the original on March 15, 2023. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
↑ Bernstein, Leilah (December 31, 1999). "L.A. Then AND NOW". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 27, 2017. Retrieved February 27, 2017.
1 2 "Counties". 2020 U.S. Census Gazetteer Files. United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved September 3, 2021.
Castillo-Munoz, Veronica (2016). The Other California: Land, Identity and Politics on the Mexican Borderlands. University of California Press.
Deverell, William; Igler, David, eds. (2013). A companion to California history. John Wiley & Sons.
Fogelson, Robert M. (1967). The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930., focus on planning, infrastructure, water and business.
Friedricks, William (1992). Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California., on Henry Edwards Huntington (1850–1927), railroad executive and collector, who helped build LA and southern California through the Southern Pacific railroad and trolleys.
Garcia, Matt. (2001). A World of Its Own: Race, Labor and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900–1970.
Garcia, Mario T. (1972). "A Chicano Perspective on San Diego History". Journal of San Diego History. 18 (4): 14–21. online
Lotchin, Roger (2002). Fortress California, 1910–1961. excerpt and text search, covers military and industrial roles.
Mills, James R. (1960). San Diego: Where California Began. San Diego: San Diego Historical Society. revised edition online
O'Flaherty, Joseph S. (1972). An End and a Beginning: The South Coast and Los Angeles, 1850–1887.
O'Flaherty, Joseph S. (1978). Those Powerful Years: The South Coast and Los Angeles, 1887–1917.
Pryde, Philip R. (2004). San Diego: An Introduction to the Region (4thed.)., a historical geography
Shragge, Abraham. (1994). "A new federal city: San Diego during World War II". Pacific Historical Review. 63 (3): 333–361. doi:10.2307/3640970. JSTOR3640970. in JSTOR
Starr, Kevin (1997). The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s. pp.90–114., covers 1880s–1940
Starr, Kevin (2004). Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990–2003. pp.372–381.
Starr, Kevin (2011). Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963. pp.57–87.
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