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"SoCal" redirects here. For other uses, see SoCal (disambiguation).
Downtown Los Angeles skyline
Southern California’s coastline from southern Los Angeles to Tijuana in Mexico, a distance of about 225 kilometers, appears in this hand-held astronaut image from October 2008. Port facilities of Los Angeles Harbor appear in great detail on the northern part of the coastline, and arc-shaped San Diego Bay is recognizable at the south end (bottom). NASA photo from International Space Station.

Southern California, or So Cal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers on the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial. The region is home to over 23 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, behind only the BosWash Region in the Northeastern United States.

There is no official definition for the northern boundary of Southern California. However, most definitions in use include all the land south of the Tehachapi Mountains, located about 70 miles (113 km) north of Los Angeles.

On the west of Southern California lies the Pacific Ocean; to the south is the international border between the United States and Mexico; to the east are the Mojave and Colorado Deserts and the Colorado River at the state's border with Arizona and Nevada.









Contents

Significance

Within its boundaries is a major world city, Los Angeles, and three of the country's largest metropolitan areas.1

Downtown San Diego

Its counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, and Riverside are in the top 15 most populous counties in the United States. The region is home to Los Angeles International Airport, the third-busiest airport in the United States by passenger volume (see World's busiest airports by passenger traffic) and the 2nd by international passenger volume, Van Nuys Airport (see Busiest airports in the United States by international passenger traffic), the world's busiest general aviation airport, San Diego International Airport, the second busiest single-runway airport in the world, Ontario International Airport, John Wayne International Airport, and LA/Palmdale Regional Airport . Southern California is also home to the Port of Los Angeles, the United States' busiest commercial port, and the adjacent Port of Long Beach. Also of note in the region is the freeway system, which is the world's busiest. 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, the nation's first suburb-to-suburb commuter rail line.

Part of downtown San Bernardino

The region has a diversified technology and industrial base as well as its multitude of prestigious and world-renowned research universities and other public and private institutions. Amongst these include five University of California campuses (Los Angeles (UCLA), Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and San Diego (UCSD) campuses), 10 California State University campuses (Channel Islands, Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), Northridge (CSUN), San Bernardino, San Diego (SDSU), and San Marcos campuses), as well as private institutions such as Caltech, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, Loyola Marymount University, the Claremont Colleges and the University of San Diego (USD).

The famous Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, a symbol of the city's world famous entertainment culture.

Southern California is also the entertainment (motion picture, television, and recorded music) capital of the world and is home to Hollywood, the center of the motion picture industry. Headquartered in Southern California are The Walt Disney Company (which also owns ABC), Sony Pictures, Universal, MGM, Paramount Pictures (parent company of Dreamworks), 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers, and as well as Univision, Activision, and THQ. Southern California is also home to the world's largest adult entertainment industry, located primarily in the San Fernando Valley. More than 85% of adult film and video production in North America takes place in the area.

Besides the entertainment industry, Southern California is also home to a large surf and skateboard culture. Companies such as Volcom, Quiksilver, O'Neill clothing division, Lost Enterprises, Sector 92, RVCA, Body Glove and Surfline3 are all headquartered here. Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, professional surfers Rob Machado, Tim Curran, Bobby Martinez, Pat O'Connell, Dane Reynolds, and Chris Ward, and professional snowboarder Shaun White live in Southern California. Some of the world's legendary surf spots are here as well, including Trestles, Rincon, The Wedge, Huntington Beach, and Malibu, and it is second only to the island of Oahu in terms of famous surf breaks. Brand name skate parks including the Vans Skate Park in Orange, the Etnies Park in Lake Forest, and the YMCA Skate Park in Encinitas are in Southern California. Some of the world's biggest extreme sports events including the X Games4, Boost Mobile Pro5, and the U.S. Open of Surfing6 are all in Southern California.

Southern California is home to many successful sports franchises and sports networks such as Fox Sports Net. Teams that are located in the region include the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA, Los Angeles Riptide, and San Diego Chargers. Southern California also hosts a number of popular NCAA sports programs, such as the UCLA Bruins, the USC Trojans, and the SDSU Aztecs.

With inhabitants from all over the world, Southern California has always been at the forefront of popular culture as well as a pioneer of several subcultures, including the hippie movement, and various musical movements such as skate punk, hardcore punk, and West Coast Rap with its gangster/"g-funk" style. The Los Angeles area in particular has always been one of the most important areas for entertainment, the arts, architecture, and food, all of which reflects the broad influence Los Angeles has on the world's culture.

Aerial view of Downtown Los Angeles, and Dodger Stadium

Geography and geology

The topography of Southern California is defined by long, linear features that trace the path of large transform faults. [At transform faults, two blocks of the Earth’s crust (or two separate tectonic plates) slide past each other horizontally.] These faults, including the Elsinore and San Jacinto Faults shown on the satellite photo, are part of the San Andreas Fault System, the broad zone of tectonic faults that occurs at the plate boundary between North America to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

The Elsinore Fault marks the steep eastern escarpment of the Santa Ana Mountains as well as the precipitation boundary between the wetter mountains and the drier deserts to the east. The rainfall difference is reflected in the darker appearance (more vegetation) of the mountains and coastal regions. Inland of the mountains, climates are far drier, and the natural vegetation is scrubby and much less dense, which allows brown and yellow soils to show through.

Although the mountains are wetter than inland areas, the climate overall is a dry one, and water management is a critical issue for the large urban areas of the state. Several reservoirs that are visible east of the Santa Ana Mountains provide water for both cities and agriculture in southern California. According to the California Department of Water Resources 7, the state is facing the worst water crisis in its history, and in June 2008, the governor declared a statewide drought, including a state of emergency for the Central Valley.

Source for this section: 8

Northern boundary

Southern California counties
Tehachapi Mountains

The region's northern boundary is subject to a broader degree of interpretation than those of the West, East, and South. The most commonly used physical boundary between "Southern California" and the rest of the state is the Tehachapi Rangecitation needed, located about 70 miles (113 km) north of Los Angeles, and the Transverse Ranges9 in Santa Barbara County west to Point Conception. Seven counties (listed in descending order of population) are included: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, and Imperial, as well as the southern part of Santa Barbara.

A more inclusive definition coinciding neatly with county lines uses the sixth standard parallel south10 of Mount Diablo (144 miles south of Mt. Diablo at 35°47′28″N) which forms the northern borders of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino counties as the boundary. The rest of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Kern County, California are included as well for a total of ten counties.

Urban landscape

Southern California is in part a heavily developed urban environment, along with vast arid areas that have been left undeveloped. It is the second-largest urbanized region in the United States, second only to the Washington, D.C./Philadelphia/New York/Boston megalopolis (BosWash). Whereas the BosWash cities are dense, with major downtown populations and significant rail and transit systems, much of SoCal 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, Riverside, and San Bernardino, each of which is the center of its respective metropolitan area, which are in turn composed of numerous other cities and communities.

In the satellite photo above, dense urban areas appear gray, with the largest conurbation (geographers’ term for an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities) in the north of the view, spanning the area of Long Beach-Los Angeles-San Bernardino. A smaller conurbation zone appears around San Diego-Tijuana in the south. 8 Traveling south on Interstate 5, the main gap to continued urbanization is Camp Pendleton. The communities along Interstate 15 and Interstate 215 are so inter-related that Temecula has as much connection with San Diego County as it does with the Inland Empire. To the east, the United States Census Bureau considers the San Bernardino and Riverside County areas, Riverside-San Bernardino Area as a separate metropolitan area from Los Angeles County. While many commute to L.A. and Orange Counties, there are some differences in development, as most of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties were developed in the 1980s and 1990scitation needed.

The Downtown Los Angeles skyline seen on a hazy June day, from the Santa Ana Freeway. At 1,018 feet (310 m), 73 floors, The U.S. Bank Tower stands as the West Coast's tallest since 1989.

Regions

County Population (Jan 2007 estimate) Land Area (mi²) Density (per mi²)
San Bernardino County 2,028,013 20,105 100.9
Los Angeles County 10,331,939 4,061 2,544.2
San Luis Obispo County 257,005 3,304 77.8
Ventura County 825,512 1,846 447.2
San Diego County 3,098,269 4,200 737.7
Riverside County 2,031,625 7,207 281.9
Orange County 3,098,121 789 3,926.6
Santa Barbara County 421,625 2,737 145
Kern County 779,869 8,141 95.8
Imperial County 172,672 4,175 41.36
Southern California 23,044,650 56,565 407.4
City Population (2007 estimate)
Santa Barbara 89,456
Goleta, Santa Barbara County 30,169
Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County 14,123
Summerland CDP, Santa Barbara County 1,545 (2000 Census)
Isla Vista CDP, Santa Barbara County 18,344 (2000 Census)
Mission Canyon CDP, Santa Barbara County 2,610 (2000 Census)
Toro Canyon CDP, Santa Barbara County 1,697 (2000 Census)
Hope Ranch, Santa Barbara County 2,200 (2000 Census)
Southern Coast of Santa Barbara County 170,144
Kern County 801,648
SoCal boundary disputed 971,792

Source : http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/ReportsPapers/Estimates/E1/documents/e-1press.pdf

Major cities (over 200,000 inhabitants)

Many major companies are headquartered in Southern California, particularly in Los Angeles.
San Bernardino in the winter, with snow covering the upper parts of the San Bernardino Mountains in the distance

Population figures for California cities are 2008 State of California estimates12

Principal cities (over 100,000 inhabitants)

Ventura City Hall in Old Town Ventura
Downtown Santa Monica

Counties

South of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains
North of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains

Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura are also counties in the Central Coast.

ZIP Codes

Main article: Southern California Zip Codes

Geographical regions

Marriott Hotel in downtown San Diego

Southern California is also divided into the Coastal Region (Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Santa Barbara County, and Ventura County) and the larger, more sparsely populated, desert Inland Empire (San Bernardino County, Riverside County, and Imperial County). The division between the Coastal Regions and the Inland Empire winds along the backs of the coastal mountain ranges such as the Santa Ana Mountains. A related geographical term is cismontane Southern California, which refers to the portion of California on the coastal side of the Transverse and Peninsular mountain ranges. The term "Southern California" often refers to this region specifically, as opposed to largely desert areas comprising the rest of the southern portion of the state, which are referred to as transmontane Southern California.

Geographic features

View from La Jolla Cove in San Diego
Summits in the eastern San Gabriel Mountains, Angeles National Forest, San Bernardino County
Coachella Valley Preserve in the Colorado Desert in Riverside County
Sunset in Huntington Beach
Mt. San Jacinto with Mt. San Gorgonio in the background. These are the #2 and #1 highest mountains in Southern California.
San Bernardino Valley

Transportation

One of the large LAX signs that greet visitors to LAX. This sign is at the Century Boulevard entrance to Los Angeles International Airport

Airports

For major airlines and commercial air carriers

Central business districts

Downtown San Bernardino Hotel, known as The Clarion Hotel

The following are central business districts in Southern California:

Transport

Freeways

 This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (May 2008)
Main article: Southern California freeways

Interstate Highways

U.S. Highway system

California State Routes

Note: highway segments with names listed in italics are surface streets and not freeways.

Major public transit organizations

Metrolink commuter lines

Main article: Metrolink (Southern California)

Communication

Telephone area codes

Map of major Southern California area codes

Sports teams

Team Sport League Venue
Los Angeles Avengers Arena football Arena Football League Staples Center
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Baseball American League (Major League Baseball) Angel Stadium of Anaheim
Los Angeles Dodgers National League (Major League Baseball) Dodger Stadium
San Diego Padres PETCO Park
Los Angeles Clippers Basketbal