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Northern California Regions

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Big Sur

Big Sur is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel Highlands and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur has been called the “longest and most scenic stretch of undeveloped coastline in the contiguous United States,” a “national treasure that demands extraordinary procedures to protect it from development” and “one of the most beautiful coastlines anywhere in the world, an isolated stretch of road, mythic in reputation.” The stunning views, redwood forests, hiking, beaches, and other recreational opportunities have made Big Sur a popular destination for about 7 million people who live within a day’s drive and visitors from across the world. The region receives about the same number of visitors as Yosemite National Park, but offers extremely limited bus service, few restrooms, and a narrow two-lane highway with few places to park alongside the road. North-bound traffic during the peak summer season and holiday weekends is often backed-up for about 20 miles (32 km) from Big Sur Village to Carmel.

Cascade Range

The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades. The small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The latter term is also sometimes used by Washington residents to refer to the Washington section of the Cascades in addition to North Cascades, the more usual U.S. term, as in North Cascades National Park. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).

The Cascades are part of the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from Cascade volcanoes. The two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, most recently from 2004 to 2008.[1] The Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that form the western “backbone” of North America, Central America, and South America.

Central California

Central California is a subregion of Northern California, generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California. It includes the northern portion of the San Joaquin Valley (which itself is the southern portion of the Central Valley, beginning at the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta), the Central Coast, the central hills of the California Coast Ranges, and the foothills and mountain areas of the central Sierra Nevada.

Central California is considered to be west of the crest of the Sierra Nevada. (East of the Sierras is Eastern California.) The largest cities (over 50,000 population) in the region are Fresno, Modesto, Salinas, Visalia, Clovis, Merced, Turlock, Madera, Tulare, Porterville, and Hanford.

Central Coast

The Central Coast is an area of California, United States, roughly spanning the coastal region between Point Mugu and Monterey Bay. It lies northwest of Los Angeles County and south of San Francisco and San Mateo counties.Six counties make up the Central Coast: from south-to north, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz.

The Central Coast is the location of the Central Coast American Viticultural Area.

The Central Coast area was originally inhabited by Chumash and other Native American people since at least 10,000 BC. Many of these communities were coastal, where the people utilized marine resources and dwelt near freshwater inflows to the Pacific Ocean. For example, there were significant communities near the mouth of Morro Creek and Los Osos Creek.

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo visited the Central Coast, landing in Santa Barbara County in 1542, having sailed from the south.

Central Valley

The Central Valley is a flat valley that dominates the geographical center of the U.S. state of California. It is 40 to 60 miles (60 to 100 km) wide and stretches approximately 450 miles (720 km) from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. It covers approximately 18,000 square miles (47,000 km2),about 11% of California’s total land area (or about the size of the Dominican Republic). The valley is bounded by the Sierra Nevada to the east and the Coast Ranges to the west.

It is California’s single most productive agricultural region and one of the most productive in the world, providing more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. More than 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of the valley are irrigated via an extensive system of reservoirs and canals. The valley also has many major cities, including the state capital Sacramento; as well as Chico, Redding, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield.

The Central Valley watershed comprises 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2), or over a third of California. It consists of three main drainage systems: the Sacramento Valley in the north, which receives well over 20 inches (510 mm) of rain annually; the drier San Joaquin Valley in the south; and the Tulare Basin and its semi-arid desert climate at the southernmost end. The Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems drain their respective valleys and meet to form the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, a large expanse of interconnected canals, stream beds, sloughs, marshes, and peat islands. The delta empties into the San Francisco Bay, and then ultimately flows into the Pacific. The waters of the Tulare Basin essentially never flow to the ocean (with the exception of Kings River waters diverted northward for irrigation), though they are connected by man-made canals to the San Joaquin and could drain there again naturally if they were ever to rise high enough.

The valley encompasses all or parts of 18 Northern California counties: Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced, Placer, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Shasta, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Yuba, Yolo, and the Southern California county of Kern.

Coastal California

Coastal California, also known as the California Coastline and the Golden Coast, refers to the coastal regions of the U.S. state of California. The term is not primarily geographical as it also describes an area distinguished by cultural, economic and political attributes.

The area includes the North Coast, San Francisco Bay Area (including Silicon Valley), Central Coast, and South Coast. During the 2000 Census, roughly a third of households had incomes exceeding $75,000, compared to 17.6% in the Central Valley and 22.5% at the national average.

The region is known for being home to artisan communities such as Laguna Beach and Carmel as well as the natural environment of the Redwood Forests of the North Coast. While the area has always been relatively expensive, when compared to inland regions and the national average, the recent[when?] real estate boom has left it as the most expensive housing market in the nation. An October 2004 CNN Money publication found that a 2,200-square-foot (200 m2) home in a “middle management neighborhood” would cost an average of $1.8 million.

East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)

The eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area, commonly referred to as the East Bay, includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. With a population of roughly 2.5 million in 2010, it is the most populous subregion in the Bay Area.

Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay and the third largest in the Bay Area. The city serves as a major transportation hub for the U.S. West Coast, and its port is the largest in Northern California. Increased population has led to the growth of large edge cities such as Alameda, Emeryville, Fremont, Pleasanton, San Ramon and Walnut Creek.

Eastern California

Eastern California is a region defined as either the strip to the east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada or as the easternmost counties of California in the United States.

Most of Eastern California does not fit the stereotypes of California and is more related in culture to southeastern Oregon, northwestern Nevada, and western Arizona. Northeastern California is very sparsely populated (except for the area around Lake Tahoe) and tends to be politically conservative, much like the rest of the rural Western United States. However, the counties of San Bernardino and Riverside form the 12th largest metropolitan area of the United States, and the counties of El Dorado, Placer, and Nevada are part of the Greater Sacramento area and are culturally influenced by their respective metropolitan areas.

Historically, Northeastern California has had strong ties to Nevada, with the exact boundary between the two states in some dispute. Residents of portions of near Susanville, California, tried to break away from California in 1856, first by declaring themselves part of the Nataqua Territory and then through annexation to Nevada. The two states further squabbled over ownership of Susanville in 1863. The town of Aurora, Nevada, was temporarily the county seat of both Mono County, California, and Esmeralda County, Nevada. Finally, the line between the two states was settled by a survey in 1872.

Emerald Triangle

The Emerald Triangle is a region in Northern California, named as such due to it being the largest cannabis-producing region in the United States. The region is made up of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity Counties. Growers have been cultivating cannabis plants in this region since the 1960s (during San Francisco’s Summer of Love). The industry exploded in the region with the passage of California Proposition 215 which legalized use of cannabis for medicinal purposes in California. Growing cannabis in The Emerald Triangle is considered a way of life, and the locals believe that everyone living in this region is either directly or indirectly reliant on the marijuana business.

Gold Country

The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. State of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines that attracted waves of immigrants, known as the 49ers, during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Greater Sacramento

The Greater Sacramento area, or officially Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Yuba City, CA–NV Combined Statistical Area, is a combined statistical area consisting of several metropolitan statistical areas and seven counties in Northern California and one in Western Nevada, namely Sacramento, Yolo, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yuba, and Nevada counties in California, and Douglas County in Nevada.

The metropolitan area experienced a growth of nearly 20% in the last decade. In the 2000 census, the Sacramento MSA had a population of 1,930,857 (though a July 1, 2009 estimate placed the population at 2,458,355).

It lies in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada regions of California as well as a small region of Western Nevada. Greater Sacramento is anchored by Sacramento, the political center of California, the nation’s most populous state with the largest number of representatives in the U.S. government, home of the California State Capitol and the secondary location of Supreme Court of California and was the original terminus for the First Transcontinental Railroad. Greater Sacramento also contains sites of natural beauty including Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America and numerous ski and nature resorts. It is also located in one of the world’s most important agricultural areas. The region’s eastern counties are located in Gold Country, site of the California Gold Rush.

Recently it has been one of the fastest growing regions in the United States as Sacramento continues to emerge as a distinct metropolitan center in the United States as well as having cheaper housing for commuters from and to the nearby, more expensive, San Francisco Bay Area.

Klamath Basin

The Klamath Basin is the region in the U.S. states of Oregon and California drained by the Klamath River. It contains most of Klamath County and parts of Lake and Jackson counties in Oregon, and parts of Del Norte, Humboldt, Modoc, Siskiyou, and Trinity counties in California. The 15,751-square-mile (40,790 km2) drainage basin is 35% in Oregon and 65% in California. In Oregon, the watershed typically lies east of the Cascade Range, while California contains most of the river’s segment that passes through the mountains. In the Oregon-far northern California segment of the river, the watershed is semi-desert at lower elevations and dry alpine in the upper elevations. In the western part of the basin, in California, however, the climate is more of temperate rainforest, and the Trinity River watershed consists of a more typical alpine climate.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, straddling the border of California and Nevada. It’s known for its beaches and ski resorts. On the southwest shore, Emerald Bay State Park contains the 1929 Nordic-style mansion Vikingsholm. Along the lake’s northeast side, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park includes Sand Harbor Beach and Spooner Lake, a gateway to the long-distance Tahoe Rim Trail.

Lassen Peak

Lassen Peak, commonly referred to as Mount Lassen, is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range of the Western United States. Located in the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California, it is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, which stretches from southwestern British Columbia to northern California. Lassen Peak reaches an elevation of 10,457 feet (3,187 m), standing above the northern Sacramento Valley. It supports many flora and fauna among its diverse habitats, which are subject to frequent snowfall and reach high elevations.

A lava dome, Lassen Peak has a volume of 0.6 cubic miles (2.5 km3) making it the largest lava dome[2] on Earth. The volcano arose from the destroyed northern flank of now-collapsed Brokeoff Volcano about 27,000 years ago, from a series of eruptions over the course of a few years. The mountain has been significantly eroded by glaciers over the last 25,000 years, and is now covered in talus deposits.

On May 22, 1915, a powerful explosive eruption at Lassen Peak devastated nearby areas, and spread volcanic ash as far as 280 miles (450 km) to the east. This explosion was the most powerful in a series of eruptions from 1914 through 1917. Lassen Peak and Mount St. Helens were the only two volcanoes in the contiguous United States to erupt during the 20th century.

Lassen Volcanic National Park, which encompasses an area of 106,372 acres (430.47 km2), was created to preserve the areas affected by the eruption, for future observation and study, and to protect the nearby volcanic features. The park, along with the nearby Lassen National Forest and Lassen Peak, have become popular destinations for recreational activities, including climbing, hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing, kayaking, and backcountry skiing. Lassen Peak is still considered active. Thus it poses a threat to the nearby area through lava flows, pyroclastic flows, lahars (volcanically induced mudslides, landslides, and debris flows), ash, avalanches, and floods. To monitor this threat, Lassen Peak and the surrounding vicinity are closely observed with sensors by the California Volcano Observatory.

Lost Coast

The Lost Coast is a mostly natural and undeveloped area of the California North Coast in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, which includes the King Range. It was named the “Lost Coast” after the area experienced depopulation in the 1930s.[1] In addition, the steepness and related geotechnical challenges of the coastal mountains made this stretch of coastline too costly for state highway or county road builders to establish routes through the area, leaving it the most undeveloped and remote portion of the California coast.[2] Without any major highways, communities in the Lost Coast region such as Petrolia, Shelter Cove, and Whitethorn are isolated from the rest of California.

The region lies roughly between Rockport and Ferndale. At the south end, State Route 1, which runs very close along the coast for most of its length, suddenly turns inland at Rockport before merging with U.S. Route 101 at Leggett. At the north end, State Route 211 begins its journey at Ferndale, heading towards Highway 101 in Fernbridge. Section 511 of the California Streets and Highways Code still says that “Route 211 is from Route 1 near Rockport to Route 101 near Fernbridge”, but it is unlikely that the portion south of Ferndale will be built. Most of the region’s coastline is now part of either Sinkyone Wilderness State Park or King Range National Conservation Area.

Metropolitan Fresno

Metropolitan Fresno, officially Fresno–Madera, CA CSA, is a metropolitan area in the San Joaquin Valley, in the United States, consisting of Fresno and Madera counties. It is the third-largest metropolitan region in Northern California, behind the Bay Area and Greater Sacramento. It is also the 49th-largest CSA in the U.S. as of 2010 census.

Metropolitan Fresno is anchored by Fresno, the fifth-largest city in California and the 35th-largest in the United States. The metropolitan area is located in the Central Valley, which is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. It has a large agricultural economy despite being increasingly urbanized.

Mount Shasta

Mount Shasta (Karuk: Úytaahkoo or “White Mountain”)[5][6] is a potentially active[7] volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. At an elevation of 14,179 feet (4321.8 m), it is the second-highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth-highest in the state. Mount Shasta has an estimated volume of 85 cubic miles (350 km3), which makes it the most voluminous stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc.[8][9] The mountain and surrounding area are part of the Shasta–Trinity National Forest.

North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)

The area is said to have been populated by Pomo Native Americans before European intervention. The Russians first settled the area at Fort Ross as a fur-trading post, but the area was later settled by the Spanish-Mexican Alta California. The Bear Flag Revolt took place in the town of Sonoma, which is also the location of the last of the California Missions. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the last secretary to the Governor of California before its annexation to the United States, kept his home in Sonoma; his ranch, now a National Historic Location, was located in nearby Petaluma.

The North Bay remained isolated and rural well into the 20th Century. The opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s transformed Marin County from a dairy farming region into an upscale suburban area. Until the 1990s, the region’s growth was at a gradual pace, with significant restrictions on development being imposed in Marin and Napa Counties in the 1970s (future Senator Barbara Boxer was an important figure in the North Bay’s open space preservation movement).

North Coast (California)

The North Coast of California (also called the Redwood Empire[1] or the Redwood Coast) is the region in Northern California that lies on the Pacific coast between San Francisco Bay and the Oregon border. It commonly includes Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties and sometimes includes two counties from the San Francisco Bay area, Marin and Sonoma.

Russian River (California)

The Russian River is a southward-flowing river that drains 1,485 sq mi (3,850 km2)[4] of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately 1,600,000 acre feet (2.0 km3),[7] it is the second-largest river (after the Sacramento River) flowing through the nine-county Greater San Francisco Bay Area, with a mainstem 110 mi (180 km) long.

Sacramento Valley

The Sacramento Valley (Spanish: Valle de Sacramento) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the Sacramento River. It encompasses all or parts of ten Northern California counties. Although many areas of the Sacramento Valley are rural, it contains several urban areas, including the state capital, Sacramento.

San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area (popularly referred to as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco Bay, San Pablo and Suisun Bay estuaries in the Northern California part of the U.S. state of California. Although the exact boundaries of the region vary depending on the source, the Bay Area is generally accepted to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other sources may exclude parts of or even entire counties, or expand the definition to include neighboring counties that don’t border the bay such as San Benito, San Joaquin, and Santa Cruz.

Home to approximately 7.68 million people, Northern California’s nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The larger combined statistical area of the region, which includes twelve counties, is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 41st-largest urban area in the world with 8.75 million people. The Bay Area’s population is ethnically diverse: for example, roughly half of the region’s residents are Hispanic, Asian, African American, or Pacific Islander, all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region.

San Francisco Peninsula

The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is in northern Santa Clara County, including the cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos. Most of the Peninsula is occupied by San Mateo County, between San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, and including the cities and towns of Atherton, Belmont, Brisbane, Burlingame, Colma, Daly City, East Palo Alto, El Granada, Foster City, Hillsborough, Half Moon Bay, La Honda, Loma Mar, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Mountain View, Pacifica, Palo Alto, Pescadero, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, San Mateo, South San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Woodside.

Whereas the term peninsula technically refers to the entire geographical San Franciscan Peninsula, in local jargon, “The Peninsula” does not include the city of San Francisco.

San Joaquin Valley

The San Joaquin Valley (/ˌsæn hwɑːˈkiːn/ SAN whah-KEEN; Spanish: Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven counties of Northern and one of Southern California, including, in the north, all of San Joaquin and Kings counties, most of Stanislaus, Merced, and Fresno counties, and parts of Madera and Tulare counties, along with a majority of Kern County, in Southern California. Although a majority of the valley is rural, it does contain cities such as Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, Modesto, Turlock, Porterville, Visalia, Merced, and Hanford.

San Joaquin Valley was originally inhabited by the Yokuts and Miwok peoples. The first European to enter the valley was Pedro Fages in 1772.

Santa Clara Valley

The Santa Clara Valley (Spanish: Valle de Santa Clara) runs south-southeast from the southern end of San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. The northern, urbanized end of the valley is part of a region locally known as the “South Bay” and also part of the electronics, research, and technology area known as Silicon Valley. Santa Clara Valley consists of most of Santa Clara County, including its county seat, San Jose, as well as a small portion of San Benito County. The valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was for a time known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s it was the largest fruit production and packing region in the world with 39 canneries.

Shasta Cascade

The Shasta Cascade region of California is located in the northeastern and north-central sections of the state bordering Oregon and Nevada, including far northern parts of the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Indigenous cultures

Historically, the Shasta Cascade region was home to Native Americans of the Modoc, Maidu, Okwanuchu, Paiute, Shasta, Wintu, and Yana tribes, and sub-groups of those tribes.

Colonialism
The first non-Native Americans entered the Shasta Cascade region by coming south along the Siskiyou Trail from Oregon, or north along the Siskiyou Trail from central California or the San Francisco Bay Area. These earliest explorers were probably British and American fur-trappers and traders in the 1820s and 1830s, although it is also possible that Spanish explorers reached the southern edge of the Shasta Cascade region before 1820.

Gold rush
The discovery of gold in 1851 at Yreka (and throughout Siskiyou and Trinity counties) brought the California Gold Rush-era prospectors up the rivers of the region in search of gold, leading to the first non-Native American settlements in the area, including at Old Shasta, Portuguese Flat, Upper Soda Springs, Weaverville, and Yreka itself.

Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada (/siˌɛrə nɪˈvædə, -ˈvɑːdə/, Spanish: [ˈsjera neˈβaða], snowy saw range[6]) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that consists of an almost continuous sequence of such ranges that form the western “backbone” of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.

The Sierra runs 400 miles (640 km) north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles (110 km) across east-to-west. Notable Sierra features include Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney at 14,505 ft (4,421 m), the highest point in the contiguous United States; and Yosemite Valley, sculpted by glaciers from one-hundred-million-year-old granite. The Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks; and Devils Postpile National Monument.

The character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred million years ago during the Nevadan orogeny, granite formed deep underground. The range started to uplift four million years ago, and erosion by glaciers exposed the granite and formed the light-colored mountains and cliffs that make up the range. The uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones (areas with similar plant and animal communities). Uplift continues due to faulting caused by tectonic forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra.

The Sierra Nevada has a significant history. The California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855. Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912.

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a region in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology, innovation and social media. It corresponds roughly to the geographical Santa Clara Valley. San Jose is the Valley’s largest city, the third largest in California, and the tenth largest in the United States. Other major Silicon Valley cities include Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale.[1] The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third highest GDP per capita in the world (after Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway), according to the Brookings Institution.[2]

The word “silicon” in the name originally referred to the large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers in the region, but the area is now the home to many of the world’s largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of 39 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies. Silicon Valley also accounts for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States, which has helped it to become a leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation and scientific development. It was in the Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other technologies, were developed. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of a million information technology workers.[3]

As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area’s two other major cities, San Francisco and Oakland, the “Silicon Valley” has come to have two definitions: a geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County, and a metonymical one, referring to all high-tech businesses in the Bay Area. The term is now generally used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similar named locations, as well as research parks and technology centers with a comparable structure all around the world.

South Bay (SF)

San Francisco Bay Area (popularly referred to as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco Bay, San Pablo and Suisun Bay estuaries in the Northern California part of the U.S. state of California. Although the exact boundaries of the region vary depending on the source, the Bay Area is generally accepted to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other sources may exclude parts of or even entire counties, or expand the definition to include neighboring counties that don’t border the bay such as San Benito, San Joaquin, and Santa Cruz.

Home to approximately 7.68 million people, Northern California’s nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The larger combined statistical area of the region, which includes twelve counties, is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 41st-largest urban area in the world with 8.75 million people.[7] The Bay Area’s population is ethnically diverse: for example, roughly half of the region’s residents are Hispanic, Asian, African American, or Pacific Islander, all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region.

The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Bay Area dates back to 3000 BC. In 1769, the Bay Area was inhabited by the Ohlone people when a Spanish exploration party led by Gaspar de Portolà entered the Bay – the first documented European visit to the Bay Area. After Mexico established independence from Spain in 1821, the region was briefly controlled by the Mexican government until the United States purchased the territory in 1846 during the Mexican–American War. Soon after, discovery of gold in California attracted a flood of treasure seekers, many using ports in the Bay Area as an entry point. During the early years of California’s statehood, state legislative business rotated between three locations in the Bay Area before a permanent state capital was established in Sacramento. A major earthquake leveled the city of San Francisco and environs in 1906, but the region quickly rebuilt in time to host the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. During World War II, the Bay Area played a major role in America’s war effort in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, with San Francisco’s Fort Mason acting as a primary embarkation point for American forces. In 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco, establishing the United Nations, and in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the U.S.’s war with Japan. Since then, the Bay Area has experienced numerous political, cultural and artistic movements, developing unique local genres in music and art and establishing itself as a hotbed of progressive politics. Economically, the post-war Bay Area saw huge growth in the financial and technology industries, creating a vibrant and diverse economy with a gross domestic product of over $800 billion, and home to the second highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the United States.

Despite its urban character, the San Francisco Bay is one of California’s most ecologically important habitats, providing key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and sediments from the rivers, and supporting a number of endangered species. The region is also known for the complexity of its landforms, the result of millions of years of tectonic plate movements. Because the Bay Area is crossed by six major earthquake faults, the region is particularly exposed to hazards presented by large earthquakes. The climate is temperate and generally very mild, and is ideal for outdoor recreational and athletic activities such as hiking. The Bay Area is host to seven professional sports teams and is a cultural center for music, theater, and the arts. It is also host to several institutions of higher education, ranging from primary schools to major research universities. Home to 101 municipalities and nine counties, governance in the Bay Area is multifaceted and involves numerous local and regional actors, each with wide-ranging and overlapping responsibilities.

Telecom Valley

Telecom Valley is the term coined for the North San Francisco Bay Area Highway 101 corridor between Petaluma and Santa Rosa in Northern California.

Genesis – Prior to the founding of Optilink, Don Green was the CEO of Digital Telephone Systems (DTS) until July 1987. DTS had been acquired twice during Don’s tenure, first by Farinon and then again by Harris Corporation. Tom Eames was a principal engineer, manager and system architect at DTS in 1987. In early 1987, Don Green approached Tom and asked him if he would technically evaluate a startup opportunity that had been presented to Don by Venture Capitalist (VC) business associates. Two entrepreneurs had approached the VCs with a business opportunity with the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC). The RBOCs had recently gone through divestiture from AT&T in 1984 and were looking at their future without Bell Labs. They had worked for Pacific Bell and a consulting company who Pacific Bell had hired to study their future strategy in the Access Network between the Central Office and customer premises. This consulting report had envisioned the future need for fiber in the Telco Access Network and described broadly an integrated and intelligent fiber terminal to replace the existing fiber multiplexing equipment and the Digital Loop Carrier (DLC). It further envisioned integration of work being done at Bellcore who was the RBOC’s new research group derived from Bell Labs. It suggested it must have dramatically enhanced integration, bandwidth, intelligence, standards compliance and performance. These entrepreneurs had made a very high level presentation of a system design to the VCs. Since it had been many years since Don was involved in system design, he asked Tom to meet with them for a presentation to evaluate their ideas at a hotel at the San Francisco Airport. Most of the presentation was slides taken from the consulting report reviewing the macro-opportunity followed by some simplistic architecture concept slides. Tom had just completed architecture and design work on the H20/20 Digital PABX. Both the market opportunity and a vision of the implementation seemed obvious in the H20/20 experience context. It was also clear the entrepreneurs had little system design experience. Tom returned from the meeting and reported to Don that this was an intriguing and fabulous opportunity and the DTS H20/20 team already had most of the expertise to realize the vision. Don returned this report to the VCs and Optilink was soon born.

Don Green along with a management and the key technical team from Harris Digital Telephone Systems founded Optilink in Petaluma, California in 1987. Green’s co-founder was Al Negrin. Key early employees in addition to Eames were Dave Ehreth who was Director of Engineering, Dave Malloy who led the software development and Chet Stephens who was the first VP of Sales. All were former employees of Green’s at Harris. Optilink is viewed as the main branch which led to the many subsequent telecom equipment suppliers that was part of the genesis of term Telecom Valley. In 1984, the Bell System divestiture created the 7 Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) structure that were no longer constrained to placing AT&T’s Bell Labs and Western Electric products in their networks. This created a multibillion-dollar market opportunity for new equipment suppliers including DLCs. It was this opportunity that was the underlying impetus for the formation of Optilink. The divestiture created a new common RBOC-owned research and engineering company known as Bellcore that began defining its views on the next generation of network technologies including DLCs through its GR-303 interface specification and other documents. Optilink received its initial round of funding after hiring George Hawley, author of the GR-303 specification and former Bell Labs Department Head responsible for planning the SLC-5 DLC System for AT&T. Hawley created the Optilink product road map that Ehreth, Eames, and Malloy developed. Known as the Litespan-2000, this system came to define the class of products known as Next Generation Digital Loop Carrier Systems or NGDLC.

Tri-Valley

The Tri-Valley area is a triangle-shaped region of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, 18 miles southeast of Oakland and 33 miles from San Francisco. It encompasses the cities of Pleasanton, Livermore, Dublin, San Ramon, Danville, Alamo, Blackhawk and Diablo.

The three valleys from which it takes its name are Amador Valley, Livermore Valley and San Ramon Valley. The region is well known for its Mediterranean climate, wine region, historic downtown areas, high cost of living and fine dining. It is a primarily affluent suburban area with a population of about 360,000. It offers more affordable living accommodations than the cities of San Francisco and San Jose.

The Trinity Alps

The Trinity Alps are a mountain range in Siskiyou County and Trinity County, in Northern California. They are a subrange of the Klamath Mountains and located to the north of Weaverville.

The Trinity Alps are within the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region, in the Klamath Mountains System, which lies between the California Coast Ranges to the west and the Cascade Range to the east. Elevations range from 1,350 feet (411 m) to 9,001 feet (2,744 m) on Thompson Peak. Other notable peaks include Granite Peak (8,094 feet (2,467 m)) and Ycatapom Peak (7,593 feet (2,314 m)). The Trinity Alps are noted for their scenic views and alpine environment. The range’s alpine flora differs from that found in the Sierra Nevada or the Cascades. Within the Klamath Mountains, adjacent subranges of the Trinity Alps include the Salmon Mountains and Scott Mountains.

The Trinity Alps Wilderness covers 517,000 acres (2,090 km2), making it the second largest wilderness area in California. The area was formerly known as the Salmon-Trinity Alps Primitive Area since 1932 until a series of expansions.

Wine Country (California)

Wine Country is the region of California, in the northern Bay Area, known worldwide as a premium wine-growing region. The region is famed for its wineries, its cuisine, Michelin star restaurants, boutique hotels, luxury resorts, historic architecture, and culture. Viticulture and wine-making have been practiced in the region since the Spanish missionaries from Mission San Francisco Solano established the first vineyards in 1812.

There are over 400 wineries in the North San Francisco Bay Area, mostly located in the area’s valleys, including Napa Valley in Napa County, and the Sonoma Valley, Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley, Bennett Valley, and Russian River Valley in Sonoma County. Wine grapes are also grown at higher elevations, such as Atlas Peak and Mount Veeder AVAs. Cities and towns associated with the Wine Country include Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Sonoma, Kenwood, Petaluma, Sebastopol, Guerneville, Windsor, Geyserville, and Cloverdale in Sonoma County; Napa, Yountville, Rutherford, St. Helena and Calistoga in Napa County; and Hopland and Ukiah in Mendocino County. Lake County is an increasingly important part of the area, surpassing Mendocino County in 2014 in price paid per ton of grapes in the North Coast premium market.

Yosemite

Yosemite National Park (/joʊˈsɛmɪti/ yoh-SEM-i-tee) is an American national park located in the western Sierra Nevada of Central California, bounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an area of 747,956 acres (1,168.681 sq mi; 302,687 ha; 3,026.87 km2) and sits in four counties: centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera County. Designated a World Heritage site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness.

On average, about 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, and most spend the majority of their time in the 5.9 square miles (15 km2) of Yosemite Valley. The park set a visitation record in 2016, surpassing 5 million visitors for the first time in its history.[9] Yosemite was central to the development of the national park idea. Galen Clark and others lobbied to protect Yosemite Valley from development, ultimately leading to President Abraham Lincoln’s signing the Yosemite Grant in 1864. John Muir led a successful movement to have Congress establish a larger national park by 1890, one which encompassed the valley and its surrounding mountains and forests, paving the way for the National Park System.

Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The park has an elevation range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet (648 to 3,997 m) and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral and oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone, and alpine. Of California’s 7,000 plant species, about 50% occur in the Sierra Nevada and more than 20% are within Yosemite. The park contains suitable habitat for more than 160 rare plants, with rare local geologic formations and unique soils characterizing the restricted ranges many of these plants occupy.

The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granitic rocks and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form its relatively gentle western slopes and the more dramatic eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, resulting in the formation of deep, narrow canyons. About one million years ago, snow and ice accumulated, forming glaciers at the higher alpine meadows that moved down the river valleys. Ice thickness in Yosemite Valley may have reached 4,000 feet (1,200 m) during the early glacial episode. The downslope movement of the ice masses cut and sculpted the U-shaped valley that attracts so many visitors to its scenic vistas today.

The name “Yosemite” (meaning “killer” in Miwok) originally referred to the name of a renegade tribe which was driven out of the area (and possibly annihilated) by the Mariposa Battalion. Previously, the area had been called “Ahwahnee” (“big mouth”) by indigenous people.

Yuba-Sutter Area

The Yuba–Sutter area (common name), or Yuba City metropolitan statistical area (name given by the U.S. Census Bureau), is a smaller metropolitan community including Yuba and Sutter Counties in Northern California’s Central Valley within the Greater Sacramento area.

The area is anchored by Yuba City, California, the county seat of Sutter County and, to a lesser extent, Marysville, California, the county seat of Yuba County.

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