Portal:California

California
California
	State of California
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Welcome to the Portal:California. Such a lovely place.

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California is a state in the Western United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. With a population of over 39 million across an area of 163,696 square miles (423,970 km²), it is the most populous U.S. state and the third largest by land area.

Before European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, as a result of its successful war for independence. Following the U.S. conquest of California, part of the Mexican-American War, California was ceded to the United States in 1848. The California gold rush started in 1848 and led to social and demographic changes, including the California genocide. It organized itself and was admitted as the 31st state in 1850 as a free state, following the Compromise of 1850.

The economy of California is the largest of any U.S. state, with an estimated 2025 gross state product of $4.296 trillion as of Q3 2025. It is also the world's largest sub-national economy and, if it were an independent country, would be the fourth-largest economy in the world (behind Germany and ahead of Japan) by nominal GDP as of 2025. The state's agricultural industry leads the nation in output, fueled by its production of dairy, almonds, and grapes. Despite heavy reliance on seaborne foreign crude oil, California also refines some of its own oil, primarily drilled from Kern County. With the busiest port in the country (Los Angeles), California plays a pivotal role in the global supply chain, hauling in about 40% of goods imported to the US. Notable contributions to popular culture, ranging from entertainment, sports, music, and fashion, have their origins in California. The state also has made substantial contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, education, environmentalism, entertainment, economics, politics, technology, and religion. California is known for its contributions to the American film industry, hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, the personal computer, the internet, fast food, diners, burger joints, skateboarding, and the fortune cookie, among other inventions. Despite an exodus of filmmaking from California, Hollywood continues to be an important center of the U.S. film industry, one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; profoundly influencing global entertainment since the 1920s. The San Francisco Bay Area's Silicon Valley is the center of the global technology industry. (Full article...)

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A hot windstorm brings dust from the surrounding desert, July 3, 1942

Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II, from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, Manzanar was one of the smaller internment camps. It is located in California's Owens Valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 miles (370 km) north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.

The first Japanese Americans arrived at Manzanar in March 1942, just one month after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, to build the camp their families would be staying in. Manzanar was in operation as an internment camp from 1942 until 1945. Since the last of those incarcerated left in 1945, former detainees and others have worked to protect Manzanar and to establish it as a National Historic Site to ensure that the history of the site, along with the stories of those who were incarcerated there, is recorded for current and future generations. The primary focus is the Japanese American incarceration era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. The site also interprets the former town of Manzanar, the ranch days, the settlement by the Owens Valley Paiute, and the role that water played in shaping the history of the Owens Valley. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various California-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Bilingual English-Spanish sign in the Colorado Desert of Southern California (from Culture of California)
Image 2The Getty Villa (from Culture of California)
Image 3Dividing the Light (2007), a skyspace by James Turrell at Pomona College (from Culture of California)
Image 4The 1835 Manifiesto a la República Mejicana, by José Figueroa, was the first book published in California. (from Culture of California)
Image 5Poppies, Antelope Valley, a California Impressionist painting by Benjamin Chambers Brown (from Culture of California)
Image 6The University of California, Berkeley is the flagship school of the University of California system. (from Culture of California)
Image 7Presidio of Santa Barbara (from Culture of California)
Image 8In-N-Out burgers (from Culture of California)
Image 9Stanford University oval (from Culture of California)

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They say California's the big burrito; Texas is a big taco right now. We want to follow that through. Florida is a big tamale.

— Dan Rather

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Image 1

Self-Portrait, 1902

Xavier Timoteo Martínez (February 7, 1869 – January 13, 1943) was a Mexican-born American artist active in California the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a well-known bohemian figure in San Francisco, the East Bay, and the Monterey Peninsula and one of the co-founders of two California artists' organizations and an art gallery. He painted in a tonalist style and also produced monotypes, etchings, and silverpoint. (Full article...)
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Voorhis in 1939

Horace Jeremiah "Jerry" Voorhis (April 6, 1901 – September 11, 1984) was an American politician and educator who served five terms in the United States House of Representatives representing California from 1937 to 1947. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the 12th congressional district in Los Angeles County. He was the first political opponent of Richard M. Nixon, who defeated Voorhis for re-election in 1946 in a campaign cited as the first example of Nixon's use of red-baiting tactics during his political rise.

Voorhis was born in Kansas, but the family relocated frequently in his childhood. He earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University (where he was elected to the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa) and a master's degree in education from Claremont Graduate School. In 1928, he founded the Voorhis School for Boys and became its headmaster. He retained the post into his congressional career. (Full article...)
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Norman Clyde in the Sierra Nevada in 1931

Norman Clyde (April 8, 1885 – December 23, 1972) was a mountaineer, mountain guide, freelance writer, nature photographer, and self-trained naturalist. He is well known for achieving over 130 first ascents, many in California's Sierra Nevada and Montana's Glacier National Park. He also set a speed climbing record on California's Mount Shasta in 1923.
The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley has 1467 articles written by Clyde in its archives. (Full article...)
Image 4

Tate in Valley of the Dolls (1967)

Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she appeared in advertisements and small television roles before appearing in films as well as working as a model. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers, being compared favorably with Marilyn Monroe.

She made her film debut in 1961 as an extra in Barabbas with Anthony Quinn. She next appeared in the British mystery horror film Eye of the Devil (1966) and co-starred in the 1967 film Don't Make Waves. Her first major role was as Jennifer North in the 1967 American drama film Valley of the Dolls, which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. The role would help her to become a rising sex symbol of Hollywood, appearing in a Playboy photoshoot by filmmaker Roman Polanski, whom she went on to marry. That year, she also performed in the comedy horror film The Fearless Vampire Killers, directed by Polanski. Tate's last completed film, 12+1, was released posthumously in 1969. (Full article...)
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Portrait by Carleton E. Watkins c. 1875

John Muir (/mjʊər/ MURE; April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.

His books, letters and essays describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to his wife and the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for the US Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. (Full article...)
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Major Burnham in his British Army uniform in 1901

Frederick Russell Burnham (May 11, 1861 – September 1, 1947) was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement.

Burnham was born on a Dakota Sioux Indian reservation in Minnesota, in the small village of Tivoli near the city of Mankato; there he learned the ways of Native Americans as a boy. By the age of 14, he was supporting himself in California, while also learning scouting from some of the last of the cowboys and frontiersmen of the American Southwest. Burnham had little formal education, never finishing high school. After moving to the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s, he was drawn into the Pleasant Valley War, a feud between families of ranchers and sheepherders. He escaped and later worked as a civilian tracker for the United States Army in the Apache Wars. Feeling the need for new adventures, Burnham took his family to southern Africa in 1893, seeing Cecil Rhodes's Cape to Cairo Railway project as the next undeveloped frontier. (Full article...)
Image 7

Norton, c. 1871–72

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880), commonly known as Emperor Norton, was a resident of San Francisco, California, who declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859 and Protector of Mexico in 1866, roles that he maintained until his death in 1880. Norton's notable acts include proposing the construction of what opened as the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936.

Born in England and raised in South Africa, Norton left Cape Town in late 1845, sailing from Liverpool to Boston in early 1846 and eventually arriving in San Francisco in late 1849. After a brief period of prosperity, Norton made a business gambit in late 1852 that played out poorly, ultimately forcing him to declare bankruptcy in 1856. (Full article...)
Image 8

Brady c. 1938

Caroline Agnes Brady (also known as Caroline Agnes Von Egmont Brady; October 3, 1905 – November 5, 1980) was an American philologist who specialised in Old English and Old Norse works. Her works included the 1943 book The Legends of Ermanaric, based on her doctoral dissertation, and three influential papers on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, among other places.

Brady was born an American citizen in Tientsin, China, and traveled frequently as a child, spending time in Los Angeles, California, British Columbia, and Austin, Texas. She studied in the University of California system, receiving her bachelor's and master's degrees, and her Ph.D. in 1935. She next became an English instructor at that university's College of Agriculture, and worked as an assistant professor of languages and literature at Berkeley from 1941 to 1946. The following three years were spent at the University of Pennsylvania, until, at the end of 1949, Brady moved to teach at Central Oregon Community College; her resignation due to "ill health" was announced a few months later. After being named the 1952–53 Marion Talbot Fellow of the American Association of University Women and writing two articles, Brady's scholarship ceased for a quarter of a century. In 1979, and posthumously in 1983, her final two articles were published. (Full article...)
Image 9

Disney in 1990

Roy Edward Disney (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009) was an American businessman, media executive, and filmmaker. He was best known for serving as a senior executive for the Walt Disney Company and the chairman of its animation division, both of which were founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his father, Roy O. Disney.

Born in Los Angeles, Disney graduated from Pomona College in 1951 and began working at Walt Disney Productions as an assistant director and producer. He then resigned at the company as an executive, and during his tenure he organized ousting of the company's top two executives: Ron W. Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005. At the time of his death, he held more than 16 million shares (about 1% of the company), and served as a consultant for the company, as well as director emeritus for the board of directors. (Full article...)
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Larson in 2024

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress, singer and filmmaker. She played supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, and has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockbusters. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.

At age six, Larson was the youngest student admitted to a training program at the American Conservatory Theater, and she began her acting career in 1998 with a comedy sketch on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She appeared as a regular in the sitcom Raising Dad (2001–2002) and experimented with a music career, releasing the album Finally Out of P.E. (2005). She subsequently had supporting roles in the comedy films Hoot (2006), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and 21 Jump Street (2012), and appeared as a sardonic teenager in the television series United States of Tara (2009–2011). (Full article...)
Image 11

Official portrait, 2026

Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 40th governor of California. A member of the Democratic Party, he served from 2011 to 2019 as the 49th lieutenant governor of California and from 2004 to 2011 as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Newsom graduated from Santa Clara University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science in political science. Afterward, he founded the boutique winery PlumpJack Group in Oakville, California, with billionaire heir and family friend Gordon Getty as an investor. The company grew to manage 23 businesses, including wineries, restaurants, and hotels. Newsom began his political career in 1996, when San Francisco mayor Willie Brown appointed him to the city's Parking and Traffic Commission. Brown then appointed Newsom to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors the next year and Newsom was first elected to the board in 1998. (Full article...)
Image 12

Adams c. 1950

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating "pure" photography which favored sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph. He and Fred Archer developed a system of image-making called the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a technical understanding of how the tonal range of an image is the result of choices made in exposure, negative development, and printing.

Adams was a life-long advocate for environmental conservation, and his photographic practice was deeply entwined with this advocacy. At age 14, he was given his first camera during his first visit to Yosemite National Park. He developed his early photographic work as a member of the Sierra Club. He was later contracted with the United States Department of the Interior to make photographs of national parks. For his work and his persistent advocacy, which helped expand the National Park system, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. (Full article...)
Image 13

Blanc in 1959

Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank /blæŋk/; May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over sixty years. Referred to as "The Man of a Thousand Voices", he is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential voice actor of all time. Blanc provided many voices for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons released by Warner Bros. during the golden age of American animation.

Blanc began his career during the Golden Age of Radio when he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy radio programs, including those of Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, The Great Gildersleeve, Judy Canova and his own short-lived sitcom. He later expanded to animation, providing the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, Pepé Le Pew and numerous other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons. Blanc also voiced the characters Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd after replacing their original performers, Joe Dougherty and Arthur Q. Bryan, respectively, although he occasionally voiced Elmer during Bryan's lifetime as well. (Full article...)
Image 14

Bergen in 2025

Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress. She won five Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards as the title character on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown (1988–1998, 2018). She is also known for her role as Shirley Schmidt on the ABC drama Boston Legal (2005–2008). In films, Bergen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Starting Over (1979) and for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Gandhi (1982).

Bergen began her career as a fashion model and appeared on the cover of Vogue before she made her screen debut in the film The Group (1966). She starred in The Sand Pebbles (1966), Soldier Blue (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), and The Wind and the Lion (1975). She made her Broadway debut in the 1984 play Hurlyburly and starred in the revivals of The Best Man (2012) and Love Letters (2014). From 2002 to 2004, she appeared in three episodes of the HBO series Sex and the City. Her other film roles include Miss Congeniality (2000), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Women (2008), Bride Wars (2009), Book Club (2018) and Let Them All Talk (2020). (Full article...)
Image 15

Eastwood in 2019

Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is a retired American actor and filmmaker. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Eastwood's greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its action comedy sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980). Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns Hang 'Em High (1968), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985), the action-war film Where Eagles Dare (1968), the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the war film Heartbreak Ridge (1986), the action film In the Line of Fire (1993), and the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995). More recent works include Gran Torino (2008), The Mule (2018), and Cry Macho (2021). Since 1967, Eastwood's company Malpaso Productions has produced all but four of his American films. (Full article...)

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... that Casa Amesti is among the oldest houses in Monterey, having been built before California became a state?
... that a California TV station's news helicopter rescued a dog from a rooftop in a flooded town?
... that a mountain in Southern California was used by the Marquardt Corporation as a laboratory to test "highly reactive or toxic" rocket propellant?
... that a man cosplaying as a character from the New California Republic was arrested due to reports that he was carrying a bomb?
... that the 2014 Isla Vista killings led to California enacting a red flag law, allowing family members to petition courts to remove weapons from persons deemed a threat?
... that astrophysicist Alan C. Cummings has led more than 1,700 weekly birdwatching walks at Caltech since 1986?
... that the California FAIR Plan could have nearly $5 billion of exposure to damage from the Palisades and Eaton Fires while only having $377 million on hand to pay claims?
... that a California TV station had a cartoon bee as its mascot?

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The Huntington Library

Credit: Aaron Logan

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (or The Huntington) is an educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington in San Marino, California, USA. In addition to the library, the site houses an art collection strong in English portraits and French eighteenth-century furniture and botanical gardens that feature North America's strongest collection of cycads.

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Credit: Rogerroger.org

The Kern River is a river in the U.S. state of California, approximately 164 miles (264 km) long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking.

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Topics

Government of California

List of California state agencies • Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments • California Attorney General • California State Board of Education • CDF Aviation Management Program • CalPERS • California Air Resources Board • California Commission for Economic Development • California Department of Boating and Waterways • California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection • California Department of Insurance • California Insurance Commissioner election, 2006 • California Legislative Analyst's Office • California Military Department • California Public Utilities Commission • California Speaks • California State Lands Commission • California State Lottery • California executive branch • CaliforniaVolunteers • California State Capitol • List of California District Attorneys • Districts in California • State of California enterprise IT systems • Department of Fair Employment and Housing • California Geological Survey • Governor of California • 11-99 Foundation • California Institute for Regenerative Medicine • California Insurance Commissioner • Joint Powers Authority • Local Agency Formation Commission • Secretary of State of California • List of law enforcement agencies in California • California State Controller • California State Police • California Department of Transportation • California State Treasurer • Westlands Water District

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject California}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.

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State facts

Nicknames: The Golden State
Capital: Sacramento
Total area: 163,696 mi²
- Land: 156,002 mi²
- Water: 7,694 mi²
Highest elevation: 14,505 ft (Mount Whitney)
Population 39,250,017 (2016 est)
Admission to the Union: September 9, 1850 (31^st)

State symbols:

Insect: California Dogface Butterfly
Bird: California Valley Quail
Fossil: Saber-toothed cat
Dance: West Coast Swing
Colors: Blue & Gold
Animal: California grizzly bear
Flower: California Poppy
Gem: Benitoite
Rock: Serpentine
Fish: California Golden Trout
Songs: I Love You, California
Tree: California Redwood
Mineral: Gold

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California

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Southern California • Los Angeles • San Francisco Bay Area • Santa Barbara County • California State Highways • California County Routes • University of California • California State University

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