Southern California

Interstate_110">Image:Harborfreeway2.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Los Angeles, rush hour on the Interstate 110 Southern California, sometimes abbreviated SoCal, is an informal name for the southern one-third of the state of California. There are no clear, exact boundaries for this area; instead, residents rely on physical features to establish the boundary. On the west is the Pacific Ocean; to the south is the international border between the United States and Mexico; and to the east is the state border between California and Arizona. The northern boundary is more difficult to define. One generally accepted 'physical' boundary between Southern California and the rest of the state is the Tehachapi Mountains located about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, California . Another useful boundary is the San Gabriel Mountains located about 10 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Depending on which of the two mountain ranges is used for the northern boundary of the region, different communities/cities and counties are included in, or excluded from, the area called "Southern California": *Using the San Gabriel Mountain range as the boundary, politically the following six counties (in descending order of population) are included: Los Angeles County, California, Orange County, California, San Diego County, California, San Bernardino County, California, Riverside County, California, and Imperial County, California. *Using the Tehachapi Mountain range as the northern boundary, the following counties could also be included: Santa Barbara County, California, Ventura County, California, San Luis Obispo County, California, and Kern County, California. Southern California is also divided into the Coastal Region (Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, and Santa Barbara County) and the larger, more sparsly populated, desert Inland Empire (San Bernardino County, Ventura 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. Southern California is a heavily developed urban environment. It is one of the most urbanized regions in the United States, second only to the Washington, D.C./New York City/Boston, Massachusetts megalopolis (BosWash). Much of SoCal is famous for its large, spread-out, suburban communities. The dominant areas are Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, and Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, California/Orange County, California; each of which is the center of their respective metropolitan areas, which comprise numerous other cities and communities. Review the metropolitan pages for more information regarding these cities, the economy, demographics, etc. The Tech Coast is a moniker that has gained popular use as a descriptor for the region's diversified industrial base. A related geographical term is cismontane Southern California, which refers to the portion of California on the coastal side of the Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges 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.
== Regions == ===Counties=== ;South of the San Gabriel mountains *Imperial County, California *San Diego County, California *Riverside County, California *Orange County, California *Los Angeles County, California *San Bernardino County, California ;North of the San Gabriel mountains *Ventura County, California *Santa Barbara County, California *San Luis Obispo County, California *Kern County, California Santa Barbara County, California, San Luis Obispo, California, and Ventura County, California are also counties in the Central Coast. ===Geographic features=== * Antelope Valley (Los Angeles, Kern Counties) * Coachella Valley (Riverside County) * Conejo Valley (Ventura County) * Channel Islands of California * San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles County) * San Gabriel Valley (Los Angeles County) * Pomona Valley (Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties) * Cucamonga Valley (San Bernardino County) * High Desert (Los Angeles, Kern, and San Bernardino Counties) * Imperial Valley (Imperial County) * Inland Empire (CA) (Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties) * Low Desert (Imperial, Riverside & San Bernardino Counties) * Orange Coast (Orange County) * Saddleback Valley (Orange County) * Salton Sea Imperial and Riverside Counties * San Bernardino Mountains (San Bernardino County) * San Gabriel Mountains (Los Angeles County) * San Jacinto Mountains (Riverside County) * Santa Ana Valley (Orange County) * Santa Catalina Island (Los Angeles County) * Santa Clara River Valley (Ventura County) * Santa Monica Mountains (Los Angeles and Ventura Counties) * Victor Valley (San Bernardino County) ==External links== *[http://www.socalhistory.org/ Historical Society of Southern California] *[http://www.metrolinktrains.com/ Metrolink] California geography

Southern California

Shouldn't "Southern California" be Baja California? This is truly Southern California. --User:Daniel C. Boyer 21:30, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC) :Baja California is a state (actually two states) in Mexico. Southern California is the common name for a (more or less loosely defined) region of the United States state of California. Can you cite a different usage of the term? --User:Brion VIBBER 23:16, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC) ::Well, what I was pointing out is that California can be just the U.S. state, but more properly is the entire area (a region, just like "Siberia" or "New England" but in this case now in two countries)encompassing the State of California and Baja California, so... --User:Daniel C. Boyer 14:56, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC) :::Is this a real, modern usage or are you just speculating for fun? --User:Brion VIBBER 00:08, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC) :: Maybe he means "south ''of'' California"? --User:Menchi (User talk:Menchi)� 23:53, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC) :: Actually, among Chicano activists (e.g. members of MEChA), it's the other way around -- California is viewed as an extension (but as yet unrecovered) of the Mexican state of Baja California. User:Joelwest 09:56, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC) How come Wikipedia's definition for "Southern California" separates it from Central California, but the page for "Northern California" seperates it from Southern California? What is the Wikipedia definition for Central California? Now I'll never get to sleep. User:Mackerm 05:16, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC) :"Northern California", in my opinion, can include or exclude Central California, depending on who you ask, but southern California never includes it. (This is coming from a born-and-raised southern Californian.) -User:Branddobbe 07:30, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC) == Explanation of Corrections == #Spelled San Berna-R-dino, not Bernadino. #The "high desert" is only in L.A., Kern, and San Bernardino Counties, not Riverside county. #The "lower desert" is in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties. #Coachella Valley (Indio, Palm Springs area) is in Riverside County, not Imperial. #Orange County is not part of the Inland Empire. --User:The anon 05:47, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC) == Removed descriptive section on LA neighborhoods == I removed the following from the article, because, while it is a good thing if we had some text like this, the current version is so riddled with sterotypes, odd inclusions and exclusions, and other errors of interpretation that it would be better not to have any text. It's a really hard task to describe whole neighborhoods in a sentance or two, and while I admire the audacity, this is not a succesful version. Please feel free to improve the copy I include below. Hopefully we can get this up to a good standard... User:JesseW 09:22, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC) ===The text I removed===

The Los Angeles Westside is known for its showbiz types, with predominantly affluent white as well
as a large Jewish populations.  The San Fernando Valley is regarded as the X-rated film capital.  
South Central Los Angeles is noted for its troubled African American population, with frequent 
drive-by shootings.  The Los Angeles Eastside has predominantly poor working-class Latino 
neighborhoods as well as several gentrified neighborhoods.  The San Gabriel Valley may be best known 
for its large lower-middle-class to upper-class Chinese American populations with 4 major 
suburban "Chinatowns" and with contigious cities approaching Asian American majorities.

===The text we should work on fixing up=== The Los Angeles Westside is known for its showbiz types, with predominantly affluent white as well as a large Jewish populations. The San Fernando Valley is regarded as the X-rated film capital. South Central Los Angeles is noted for its troubled African American population, with frequent drive-by shootings. The Los Angeles Eastside has predominantly poor working-class Latino neighborhoods as well as several gentrified neighborhoods. The San Gabriel Valley may be best known for its large lower-middle-class to upper-class Chinese American populations with 4 major suburban "Chinatowns" and with contigious cities approaching Asian American majorities. ::"Forget it Jake, it's...Chinatown..." ==Northern border== How can we even take seriously a definition that lists Santa Barbara as being outside of Southern California? That's absurd. Does anyone really use any specific mountain range as a "border"? -User:68.8.31.231 05:27, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::"Forget it Jake, it's...Chinatown..." ==Kern County== When even the tourist board of Kern County doesn't think its part of Southern California, there's no reason we should include it as such. Kern County is widely recognized as a Central Valley county geographically, economically, and culturally. User:Infernalfox :Here is the intro to Northern California: ::''Northern California (sometimes NorCal or NoCal) refers to the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, roughly covering all of those counties except for the ten counties which make up Southern California.'' :In other words, the basic division is north/south. I see that in the California geography template articles most of the sub-regions do not specify counties. Kern could be included in Central Valley, Mojave, and Sierra Nevada regions, if they listed counties. It belongs to all of those regions, as well as to Southern California. Cheers, -User:Willmcw 08:31, May 20, 2005 (UTC) ::A meta-wikipedia reference would be an inappropriate source as to whether Kern County is a Southern California county. GIS "Kern County Southern California" first results to show up clearly indicate the Central Valley identification for the county. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) considers it as a Central Valley. The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) does NOT include Kern County. Per the division of California into two, counties just north of Kern are definitely not Northern California. Sierra Madre countries on the southern Nevada border are also never referred to as part of NorCal. Kern is also not a Sierra Nevada county, San Bernardino is to its east. Northern and Southern California have for sometime widely-recognized boundaries, integral to this knowledege is that there parts in the middle that are neither.

See other meanings of words starting from letter:

S