Where Is California?

Where Is California?


California is a land of extremes. The lowest point in the United States, the highest point on the US mainland, and the hottest place on earth are all found in California. California has the biggest population, the largest economy, and the most biological diversity of any US state. Some of the world’s tallest trees, highest waterfalls, deepest valleys, and active volcanoes are found there.

A typical day in California can be full of extremes. Can you imagine skiing on a snowy mountain and then lounging on a sunny beach all in one day? You can do it in California!

Chapter 1
California’s Land and Environment


California is a huge state—the third largest in the United States, after Alaska and Texas. At 163,695 square miles, it’s bigger than many countries, including Japan and Italy. And within the state there is a wide range of terrains, climates, and ecosystems.

California is located on the West Coast of the United States. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Nevada and Arizona to the east, Oregon to the north, and the country of Mexico to the south.

There are four natural regions of California. The first, the coastal region, includes hundreds of miles of amazing coastline along the Pacific Ocean. Southern California is known for its wide, sandy beaches. In Central California, the coastline contains rocky cliffs that drop straight into the ocean. The temperature in the southern coastal region is typically warm, with dry summers and occasionally wet winters. Temperatures are cooler farther north along the coast, especially in winter. In San Francisco, for example, the temperature can dip below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

California’s second and middle region, the Central Valley, is the center of the state’s agricultural production. That’s because the most fertile land in the state is found there. Over one-third of the vegetables, and nearly 75 percent of the fruits and nuts in the United States, are grown in California. That’s over four hundred crops in total! Some of the state’s largest harvests are grapes, almonds, lettuce, and strawberries.

The Central Valley is very hot and dry in the summer and foggy in the winter. The state’s two longest rivers, the San Joaquin River and the Sacramento River, run through it.

The third region of California is made up of its mountain ranges. The coastal ranges, including the Klamath Mountains in the state’s northwest corner, separate the coastal region from the Central Valley. The inland mountain ranges include the Cascades in north-central and northeast California and the Sierra Nevada in the eastern-central part of the state. The mountain areas have short summers and cold winters.

Finally, there’s the fourth region—the desert region, which takes up most of eastern California. The Mojave Desert, located in the southeastern part of the state, is home to Death Valley, the hottest place on earth and the driest place in North America. Death Valley also contains the lowest point in the United States, Badwater Basin, which sits 282 feet below sea level. (Interestingly, California is also home to the highest point on the US mainland, Mount Whitney, in the Sierra Nevada. It towers about 14,500 feet above sea level.)

Two other major California deserts, both in the southeast, are the Colorado Desert and the Great Basin Desert. Like all deserts, California’s deserts are very dry.

With such a wide range of geography, it’s no surprise that California is home to a huge variety of plants and animals. It is more biologically diverse than any other US state, with about forty thousand plant and animal species.

About one-third of California is covered in forests, containing mostly conifers (trees that produce cones) like pine trees, cedar trees, and California’s famous giant redwoods and sequoias. You’ll also find palm trees along the coast and in other areas, although most of them have been imported from outside the state.

Some of California’s most plentiful land animals are brown bears, wildcats, cougars, deer, coyotes, black bears, skunks, and raccoons. The Pacific Ocean off California’s coast is home to a huge variety of marine life, including tuna, bass, rockfish, sharks, and rays. Marine mammals such as dolphins, seals, sea otters, whales, and sea lions also live there. Millions of people flock to San Diego’s La Jolla Cove in Southern California and San Francisco’s Pier 39 in Northern California to see its resident sea lions basking in the sun. Whale watching cruises are also popular.

Unfortunately, many animal species in California are endangered. These include the famed California condor, the largest land bird in North America. Other animals, like the California grizzly bear, are now extinct. In fact, California is the only US state with an image of an extinct animal—the California grizzly—on its state flag and seal.

In addition to its various landforms, California is home to thousands of lakes. Lake Tahoe, which sits on the California-Nevada border in the Sierra Nevada, is the second-deepest lake in the United States. The Salton Sea in Southern California (a saltwater lake) is the largest lake in the state. Clear Lake, north of San Francisco, is its biggest freshwater lake.

California’s National Parks

National parks are large areas of land set aside by the government to protect natural and historic resources. There are sixty-three national parks in the United States, and California has nine of them—more than any other state. They contain some amazing geological treasures. Here are a few:

Death Valley National Park is the largest US national park outside of Alaska, covering 3.4 million acres. There you’ll find giant sand dunes, deep canyons, and huge salt flats (flat areas of land covered with salt and other minerals).

Yosemite National Park is in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. It’s known for its spectacular waterfalls, including Yosemite Falls, which plummets 2,425 feet. It’s also home to the famous Half Dome, a massive granite rock formation that’s over 8,800 feet above sea level. Also in the Sierra Nevada is Sequoia National Park. Its giant sequoia trees are some of the largest living things on earth.

Redwood National Park, located on California’s northern coast, is famous for its towering redwood trees. Its lush forests contain 45 percent of the world’s old-growth redwoods. That includes the tallest living redwood tree, Hyperion, standing about 380 feet tall. That’s taller than the Statue of Liberty!

California is located on the Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped belt around the Pacific Ocean that’s home to three-quarters of the world’s active volcanoes. Several of them are in California. These include the 14,163-foot Mount Shasta and the 10,456-foot Lassen Peak, both part of Northern California’s Cascade Range. About 90 percent of earthquakes in the world occur around the Ring of Fire.

California is also prone to wildfires, due in large part to the warm, dry climate in much of the state. Santa Ana winds—strong, extremely dry winds that start in the area east of the Sierra Nevada and blow west toward the Pacific Ocean—can spark wildfires and help them spread faster, destroying trees and brush. Then, rain or melting snow can cause water to rush down mountains and create mudslides and flash floods.

In California, there is potential for earthquakes, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. Still, people have chosen to live there for thousands of years. Its first settlers came from Asia in search of warmer weather. Eventually, there were hundreds of Indigenous nations, including the Mojave and Washoe, living in what is now California. Today, many Indigenous people and nations make their homes there.

But California didn’t officially become a US state until September 9, 1850, when it became the country’s thirty-first state. And over centuries, it has grown to be the most populous state, home to over thirty-nine million people as of 2024.

Chapter 2
State Origins


Most historians agree that California got its name from a 1500s Spanish novel about a fictional island paradise called California. And in fact, the Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive there.

In the early 1500s, Mexico was controlled by Spain. In 1542, a Spanish explorer named Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed from the west coast of Mexico to San Diego Bay and claimed it for Spain.

English explorer Sir Francis Drake sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from England, around the southern tip of South America, and on to Northern California in 1579. He named that land New Albion and claimed it for England.

Another Spanish explorer, Sebastián Vizcaíno, traveled along California’s coast in 1602. He gave many places their current names—including San Diego in the south, Santa Barbara in central California, and Monterey in the north.

But California was mostly neglected by the Spanish until 1769. Fearful that European powers like Russia and England would seize the land, Spain sent a military expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá to build military forts (called presidios) along the coast. The group was also ordered to build missions (religious settlements) to convert members of Indigenous nations to Christianity and to teach them to speak Spanish and to farm and ranch.

Portolá built the first presidio in San Diego, and a Roman Catholic priest named Father Junípero Serra began the first mission (called Mission San Diego de Alcalá) there. This was officially the first Spanish settlement in California. By 1823, there were twenty-one missions and four presidios along California’s coast. The Europeans were reinforcing their “ownership” of the land.

Many Indigenous people were enslaved and forced to live at these missions. Life in the missions was brutal for them. They worked long and hard on tasks like farming, building, and cooking for little or no reward. They received little education. If they broke rules, they endured severe punishments.

The Indigenous nations did not want to lose their languages, religions, and cultures. Some tried to escape. Others attempted to fight back. Many were beaten or killed. And thousands died from diseases the Spanish brought, like smallpox, chicken pox, and measles.

This was devastating to Indigenous nations. Before the Spanish arrived in California, close to three hundred thousand people were living there. By 1840, only about half of that number remained.

In 1821, the country of Mexico won its independence from Spain after fighting the Mexican Revolution. California was now part of Mexico. In 1833, the Mexican government began shutting down California’s missions and dividing the lands around them (called ranchos) among the Spanish settlers. Some Indigenous people went to work for the new landowners. Others tried to return to their homelands, but in many cases, they were forced to relocate by white settlers.

The US government also wanted control of California. From the 1820s through the 1840s, Mexico and the United States argued over the land of California. Mexico refused to sell it.

In 1841, the first organized white American settlers arrived in California. They traveled from Missouri in search of rich farmland and a warm climate. Like the Spanish had done, the Americans forced more Indigenous nations off their land.

In June 1846, a group of Americans rebelled against Mexican rule in California. They raised a Bear Flag at a Mexican settlement in Sonoma, located in Northern California, and declared California an independent republic. The Bear Flag later became the official state flag in 1911.

But this independent California Republic lasted less than a month. In 1846, the United States and Mexico went to war. The United States won the Mexican-American War two years later, taking control of California and several other western states.

That’s when California’s population of settlers from the rest of the United States began to expand. On January 24, 1848, a man named James Marshall was building a sawmill (a place where logs are cut to make boards) in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada when he discovered something shiny: gold. Rumors of his discovery began to spread.

On December 5, 1848, President James K. Polk confirmed that the rumors were true. Like many Americans, he believed in Manifest Destiny—the idea that US citizens had the right and duty to spread out across the entire country from the East Coast to the West Coast.

In 1849, thousands of people trekked to California with the hope of striking it rich. These people were called forty-niners because of the year they set out. Their journey out west became known as the Gold Rush.

Most of the forty-niners settled in the northern part of California, where the gold was originally found. They set up mining camps and worked long and hard under extremely difficult conditions. While a few of them found gold and become wealthy, most found nothing. The Gold Rush sparked a period of huge growth for California. By 1850, its population had grown from about 15,000 to nearly 100,000. By 1860, it ballooned to about 380,000. Many farms and ranches sprang up round the state.

The Gold Rush impacted the entire country, not just California. Chinese workers who had come to California in search of gold helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. Irish laborers also came to work on the railroad. Completed in 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad extended from the northeastern United States all the way to California. That meant people could travel from coast to coast in just one week.

One group the Gold Rush did not help were the members of Indigenous nations. There were about 150,000 Indigenous people in California when the Gold Rush began. But by 1860, only 30,000 remained. For many, there was no choice but to try to blend in to the settlers’ culture to survive.