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Population (1994):
31,431,000 (1st in size)
State size: 158,706 square
miles (3rd in size)
State Capital: Sacramento (From the Spanish word
"Sacramento" meaning "The Blessed
Sacrament."
Major cities: Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco,
San Jose and Oakland.
Admission to union: The 31st State
Date entered the union: September 9, 1850
Origin of state name: Named after an imaginary island
in a 16th century Spanish novel.
Nicknames: The Golden State
Bordering states: Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, with
Mexico to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the west.
State animal: California
Grizzly Bear
State bird: California
Valley Quail
State flower: California
Poppy
State tree: California
Redwood
Motto: I Have Found It |
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| California is famous for its
beaches and mountains. Mountains, which cover a
considerable part of the state, are often snow capped
much of the year while neighboring plains, valleys and
beaches remain warm and dry.
In some areas of
California you can go snow skiing in the mountains, and
swimming or wind surfing in the ocean, all on the same
weekend.
Lake Tahoe, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, is 22
miles wide, and 72 miles around, at an altitude of 6,200
feet. |
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| Mount Whitney in the Sequoia
National Park is the highest mountain in the continental
United States (not including Alaska).
California has
many other geographic landmarks such as Yosemite. Yosemite's dramatic landscape, including Half Dome is
shown to the right.
Other geographic landmarks include Mount Whitney,
Death Valley, Mohave Desert and Mount Shasta. |
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| California is known as the
golden state. In addition to the gold rush, which brought
many settlers to the area, the hills of California are
covered with grasses and flora that make the land look
gold.
California also has many coastal redwood forests.
The redwood tree, California's state tree, is the tallest
tree in the world, with many reaching over 300 feet tall. |
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| San Francisco, Los Angeles
and other cities and surrounding areas attract millions
of tourists each year.
Napa Valley wine country, north
of San Francisco attracts tourists to its wineries and
vineyards.
Gold country, east of San Francisco, attracts many
tourists each year. This area is famous for its 1949 gold
rush which brought many prospectors and settlers to
California. You can visit old gold mines and pan for
gold. |
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| Los Angeles and Hollywood is
internationally renown for its motion picture and
entertainment industry.
Disneyland is a popular
attraction for its rides and amusement park. At Universal Studios Hollywood you can see how movies are made and go
on many motion picture theme rides. Other entertainment
areas include Six Flags Marine World. |
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| California is also well
known for its beaches and climate. It has more than a
thousand miles of ocean coastline. Most Californians live
along the coast, near the Pacific Ocean.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium in
Monterey, and the Sea World Adventure Park
in San Diego, provide great examples of ocean life. |
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California has a diverse set
of industries including agriculture, entertainment, oil,
mining and high technology manufacturing such as
computers, telecommunications and biotechnology.
Silicon
Valley, bridging the San Jose and San Francisco areas,
has become a world leader in high technology products
ranging from computers to telecommunications and the
Internet. It is best known for its ability to create
startup companies in emerging new industries.
The Digital Coast in southern California, around Los
Angeles, has become famous for motion pictures and the
entertainment industry.
Sports is also a major industry with many professional
sports teams ranging from baseball and football to
basketball and hockey. |
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Native Americans lived in
California for thousands of years before the first
Europeans arrived on the scene. Spanish explorer, Hernan
Cortes, discovered the peninsula of Baha California in
1533. He actually thought it was an island, and named it
after an imaginary island in a 16th century Spanish book.
The first Europeans to colonize California were the Spanish in the mid-1700s.
Father Junipero Serra led a group a missionaries and soldiers to establish
the California Missions.
In all, 21 missions were established from San Diego to San Francisco.
These missions helped to open the territory and led to the creation of
other towns and cities.
In 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spain, California became
part of Mexico. In 1846, Mexico and the United States went to war to settle
territorial disputes. The United States won the Mexican War in 1848,
and took control over California.
Gold discovery in 1849 started the California Gold Rush which brought a flood of prospectors looking for wealth. |
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| California has a
diverse population and culture. |
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| California has a Mediterranean climate with lots of warm sunshine and
mostly moderate temperatures. California gets rain mostly
in the winter months, and mostly in the northern part of
the state.
There are a few exceptions to this Mediterranean climate. In Death Valley temperatures can
reach a high of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Mountain areas in
the Sierras can get very cold. Northern California,
around San Francisco, can get considerable fog. Southern
California, around Los Angeles, has warm sunny weather
for much of the year. |
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| California is
also well known for its earthquakes. California lies
along two great geographic plates, the Pacific Plate and
the North American Plate. As these plates shift past each
other, they cause shock waves through the ground
resulting in earthquakes. Earthquakes are measured on a
scale of 1 to 10. In 1989, San Francisco felt a 7.1
earthquake. In 1994, Los Angeles had a 6.8 earthquake.
Fortunate, most of California's houses and buildings have
been design to withstand major earthquakes.
At the La
Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, scientists have discovered
over 100 tons of bones from prehistoric animals including
the mastodon, mammoths, sloths and saber-toothed tigers. |
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