California
Pacific-coast state of the USA; nicknamed the Golden State (originally
because of its gold mines, more recently because of its orange groves
and sunshine)
Area:
411,100 sq km/158,685 sq mi
Capital:
Sacramento
Cities:
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San José, Fresno
Physical:
Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks (the former
a World Heritage Site), Lake Tahoe, Mount Whitney (4,418 m/14,500 ft,
the highest mountain in the lower 48 states); the Coast Range; Death
Valley (86 m/ 282 ft below sea level, the lowest point in the Western
hemisphere); Colorado and Mojave deserts; Monterey Peninsula; Salton
Sea; the San Andreas fault; huge, offshore underwater volcanoes with
tops 5 mi/ 8 km across; Yosemite Falls (739 m/ 2,425 ft), the highest
waterfall in North America; redwood trees in several state parks, including
Redwood National Park (a World Heritage Site), Humboldt Redwoods state
park, and the Avenue of the Giants; Joshua Tree national monument; Lava
Beds national monument; Point Reyes national seashore; Point Lobos State
Reserve, with sea lions; Big Sur, coastline south of Carmel; Anza- Borrego
Desert state park
Features:
Spanish missions, including Carmel Mission (1770), Mission San Luis
Obispo de Tolosa (1772), Mission San Luis Rey (1798), and La Purisma
Concepcion Mission, Lompoc; gold-rush towns, including Downieville;
Marshall Gold Discovery state historic park; Fort Ross, established
in 1812 by the Russian-American Company; Hearst Castle, built by newspaper
proprietor William Randolph Hearst (begun 1919); Monterey, with the
Custom House (1827) and Cannery Row; J Paul Getty Museum, Malibu; California
Institute of Technology (Caltech); University of California at Berkeley,
centre of student protest in the 1960s; University of California at
Los Angeles (UCLA); Stanford University at Palo Alto; Hollywood, with
Universal Studios, Sunset Strip, and Beverly Hills; San Diego Wild Animal
Park; Napa Valley wine country; Orange County, with Disneyland; homes
of celebrities at Malibu and Palm Beach
Products:
Leading agricultural state with fruit (peaches, citrus, grapes in the
valley of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers), nuts, wheat, vegetables,
cotton, and rice, all mostly grown by irrigation, the water being carried
by concrete-lined canals to the Central and Imperial valleys; beef cattle;
timber; fish; oil; natural gas; aerospace technology; electronics (Silicon
Valley); food processing; films and television programmes; great reserves
of energy (geothermal) in the hot water that lies beneath much of the
state
Population:
(1996 est) 31,878,000, the most populous state of the USA (69.9% white;
25.8% Hispanic; 9.6 % Asian and Pacific islander, including many Vietnamese,
7.4% African American; 0.8% Native American)
Famous people:
Luther Burbank, Walt Disney, William Randolph Hearst, Jack London,
Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, John Steinbeck
History:
Colonized by Spain in 1769; ceded to the USA after the Mexican War
1848; became a state in 1850. The discovery of gold in the Sierra
Nevada in January 1848 was followed by the gold rush 1849-56.
The completion of the first transcontinental railroad 1869 fostered
economic development. The Los Angeles area flourished with the
growth of the film industry after 1910, oil discoveries in the
early 1920s, and the development of aircraft plants and shipyards
during World War II. Some 100,000 Californians of Japanese ancestry
were interned during the war. California became the nation's most
populous state 1962. Northern California benefited from the growth
of the electronics industry from the 1970s in what came to be
called Silicon Valley. The state's economy suffered during the
early 1990s as the defence industries declined. Devastating earthquakes
occurred in the San Francisco Bay area 1989 and the San Fernando
Valley-Los Angeles area in 1994. Storms and floods Jan and March
1995 caused a total of 26 deaths and an estimated $ 3.3 billion
in damage. Total costs from recent disasters, including the fires
in the south of the state in 1993, were estimated at $28.5 billion.
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