Ch. 10 The Coastal South

California's Central Valley does not attract as many tourists, has no resorts, and I am unsure why anyone would want to retire there in comparison to the Coastal South. 

Petroleum and natural gas is found in great quantities in the Coastal South, but "sizable oil and natural gas deposits are found across six geological basins in California, located primarily in the Central Valley and along the Pacific coast (seekingalpha.com)."

"Researchers estimate reserves of between 150 million and 250 million barrels of oil and gas. The Kern County discovery has received the most press, but experts estimate there are at least six fields in the region that contain reserves exceeding 100 million barrels of oil (alphadog.com)."

Kern River Oil Field; view from Panorama Park in Bakersfield, on the blufftop across the river.

The Coastal South and the Central Valley do not share similarities within climate. Rarely does the Central Valley get humid, and that's a staple within the Coastal South's climate change. 

Although the soil in the Coastal South is usually infertile, they still produce large portions of certain crops. 

      Most notably:

• Citrus fruit- oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, lemons, and limes. 
• Sugar cane
• Rice

These crops tolerate little to no frost. 

Ch. 9 The Inland South

Farming was once a vital resource to the economy of the Inland South. Sadly, it dropped substantially within the 20th century. Like California's Central Valley, the Inland South focused on commercial production for export.

The Inland South struggled with slavery. Although California was admitted into the Union as a free state, it still toiled with its bouts of slavery.  Plus, slavery was in effect under Mexican Law and popular with the Spaniards that previously owned the land. 

Many slaves came to areas of the Northern Central Valley with their Southern slaveholders during the Gold Rush. They would often earn enough to take back home and buy out their family from slavery. 

Allensworth, California in Tulare County is a town founded in 1908, with the idea that African Americans could own property, learn, thrive, and live the American Dream. The town was named by Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth who was born into slavery and later became a chaplain of the United States Army. 

Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth

Allensworth, Ca

The Inland South contains very diverse states such as Texas. Only California rivals Texas for it's diversity of people, places, and natural environments. 

Ch. 8 The Great Lakes and Corn Belt

       vs.

The Great Lakes and Corn Belt region of the United States share similarities  in their fruitful bounties of agriculture with California's Central Valley. While California is the most productive state in terms of agricultural receipts with 13.20% of total US production, Iowa is the third with 6.07% of total US production. Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, and Kansas follow immediately after in ranking.

The Great Lakes and Corn Belt region is situated in a vast ventral lowland between the Appalachian Mountain Province to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west. Much like the Central Valley surrounded by the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains, the Coast Range, and Tehachapi Mountains. Both areas share similar landscapes that consist of gentle rolling hills.

Like California, in the Great Lakes and Corn Belt region, the more north you travel, the more extreme the winters will get.

The Central Valley does not compare to the historically profitable industrial sector of the Great Lakes and Corn Belt region. It has not shared the same level of success. Sadly, there has been a mass exodus of the steel mills that made this region equally as profitable as their agricultural production. This exodus has coined the term "Rust Belt" for parts of the region.

Ch. 7 Megalopolis

Sacramento Metropolitan Area

No city or metropolitan area in California's Central Valley can compete with the population numbers of that found in Megalopolis. The closest comparison is that of Baltimore- Towson, MD with 2,690,886 people in 2010 and the Sacramento Metropolitan Area of the Central Valley with a population of 2,461,780. 

"The Sacramento metropolitan area experienced a growth of nearly 20% in the last decade. The 2010 United States Census estimates for the region totaled a population of 2,461,780, making it the 4th largest metropolitan region in California and 18th largest in the United States (Wikipedia)."

The principle cities of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area are:

• Sacramento
• Arden-Arcade
• Roseville
• Yuba City
• South Lake Tahoe
• Truckee

California is the most populous state in America and therefore has 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 (Wikipedia)."  

Because of this, the tertiary sector is most dominant in this area. This is contrasting from the rest of the Central Valley that is heavily invested in the primary sector through agriculture. 

Ch. 5 The Atlantic Periphery

California's Central Valley differs greatly from the Atlantic Periphery. While the valley's Mediterranean climate and San Joaquin soil provides abundant agriculture, the Atlantic Periphery's cool climate and rocky soils provide unsuitable land for large-scale commercial agriculture.

The Atlantic Periphery is comprised of large forests and abundant quantities of offshore fish and other marine animals. The valley is home to vast plains and grasslands, with gentle rolling hills while being surrounded by mountains. "The Central Valley was once home to large populations of pronghorn antelope, elk including the endemic Tule Elk subspecies, mule deer, California ground squirrels, gophers, mice, hare, rabbits and kangaroo rats, along with their predators including the San Joaquin Kit Fox which is now an endangered subspecies surviving on the hillsides of the San Joaquin Valley(Wikipedia)." 

"Although, there are some areas that produce specialty crops. For instance, Maine produces the majority of North America's blueberries. Cranberries are produced in Maine and Massachusetts. Maple and dairy products are exported from Vermont. In northern Maine and adjacent New Brunswick is an important potato producing region. In Canada, the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia is a well-known apple producing region (The Geography of North America, 97)." 

Without access to salt water, the valley is situated inland without swift access to oceans or ports. On the latter, the Atlantic Periphery has all of the advantages that come with living on a coast. With this easy access to trade, there was early settlement. 

Ch. 4 The North American Political Economy

Agriculture is the primary industry in most of the Central Valley, meaning the majority of workers are employed in the primary sector. 

"The Central Valley is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions and is the largest patch of Class 1 soil in the world. More than 230 crops are grown there. On less than 1 percent of the total farmland in the United States, the Central Valley produces 8 percent of the nation’s agricultural output by value: 17 billion USD in 2002. Its agricultural productivity relies on irrigation from both surface water diversions and groundwater pumping from wells. About one-sixth of the irrigated land in the U.S. is in the Central Valley (Wikipedia)."

"The top four counties in agricultural sales in the U.S. are in the Central Valley (2007 Data). They are Fresno County (#1 with $3.731 billion in sales), Tulare County (#2 with $3.335 billion), Kern County (#3 with $3.204), and Merced County (#4 with $2.330 billion (Wikipedia)."

 "A notable exception to the predominance of agriculture has been the Sacramento area, where the large and stable workforce of government employees helped steer the economy away from agriculture. Despite state hiring cutbacks and the closure of several military bases, Sacramento's economy has continued to expand and diversify and now more closely resembles that of the nearby San Francisco Bay Area (Wikipedia)."

 Sacramento Bridge 

Sacramento Capitol Building

Ch. 3 Historical Settlement of North America

The settlement of California's Central Valley began like many areas of the United States. Native Americans were the first inhabitants of this location. 

Most recently: 

• Maidu Tribes, Central Sierra Nevada in the drainage area of the Feather and American Rivers
• Interior Miwok Tribes, Sacramento Valley and the Sierra Mountains
• Yokut Tribes, San Joaquin Valley stretching down into Bakersfield

     Location of Maidu                   Location of Miwok                                       

                                                                                                   

                          Location of Yokut

"The second largest concentration of Americans claiming Portuguese ancestry is in central California. Although Spanish and Mexican settlers did establish roots in California, it was mainly along the coast. Rarely did they venture the middle of the state where they would have found fertile soil perfect for settlement. The discovery of gold in the 1850's brought Portuguese settlers from the coastlines and into gold mining camps in the Sacramento Valley. Most of these early immigrants were Azoreans, who had come to California from southeastern New England(loc.gov)."

Portuguese settlement in the Central Valley increased at the end of the eighteenth century. These newcomers engaged primarily in agriculture, including dairying and intensive vegetable and fruit farming. Once they established themselves in the San Joaquin Valley, they developed fruit, vegetable, and dairy farms in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Kings, and Tulare counties.

"Primary sources of population growth are people migrating from the San Francisco Bay Area seeking lower housing costs, as well as immigration from Asia, Central America, Mexico, Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union(Wikipedia)." The three major languages spoken now in the Central Valley are English, Spanish, and Hmong.

Ch. 2 North America's Environmental Setting

California's Central Valley is 450 miles long and 40-60 miles wide. 

It is bounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in the East, Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains in the North, Coast Range and San Francisco Bay to the West, and the Tehachapi Mountains to the South. 

"This vast interior valley was created over one hundred million years ago when huge masses of granite rose above the surface of the earth in California to form the core of the Sierra Nevada, and glaciers moved over the land, carving out channels in the mountains that became rivers----rivers that over time brought sediment to the valley (valleyhistory.org)."

The only exception to the flat land surfaces of the valley, is remnants of an extinct volcano named Sutter Buttes in Yuba City, just 44 miles north of Sacramento. 

Sutter Buttes in Yuba City, CA

There are two major river systems in the valley; the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, along with their tributaries. 

"The rivers of the Central Valley converge in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a complex network of marshy channels, distributaries and sloughs that wind around islands mainly used for agriculture. Here the freshwater of the rivers merges with tidewater, and eventually reach the Pacific Ocean after passing through Suisun Bay, San Pablo Bay, upper San Francisco Bay and finally the Golden Gate (Wikipedia)."

The soil in the central valley is the San Joaquin (soil) that has become the official designated state insignia. San Joaquin is the State Soil for California. "San Joaquin soils are classified in USDA soil taxonomy as fine, mixed, active, thermic abruptic durixeralfs.

• Surface layer is brown loam.

• Upper subsoil is brown loam, lower subsoil is brown clay.

• Substratum is light brown and brown, indurated duripan with 70 to 90 percent silica-sesquioxide cementation (Wikpedia)."

While living in this region, the weather and I were constantly on opposite sides. The Northern Central Valley has a hot Mediterranean climate, while the Southern Central Valley is dry enough to be Mediterranean steppe or even low-latitude desert. It is characterized by hot and dry summers,with temperatures that can soar to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and cool and damp winters. Mid-Autumn to mind-spring comprises the rainy season. Ground fog known as "tule fog" is very dangerous and common in the valley. "The northern half of the Central Valley receives greater precipitation than the semi desert southern half. Frost occurs at times in the winter months, but snow is extremely rare (Wikipedia)."

Ch. 1 Introduction

Hello, hi, and welcome to my very own blog about California's Central Valley for Geography 321OL. You may be asking yourself, "Why would anyone choose the Central Valley for their blog project?" When we think of California, attractions that pop into our head are obviously Hollywood and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Central Valley is often overlooked. 

I spent my entire life living in the Central Valley and never once found beauty within it. To tell you the truth, I hated living there. With this project, I vow to create an appreciation for the land that raised me, and hopefully spark an interest in others to explore or at least think and know about California's Central Valley. 

Located smack dab in the middle of California, the Central Valley is surrounded by mountain ranges. 

The Central Valley is California's agricultural Heartland because of its long growing season and fertile soil. Because of this,  it has the largest single concentration of fruit and nut farms and vineyards in the United States. 

The Central Valley was seen by Spanish explorers in the 1500s but remained virtually uninhabited until the 1849 California gold rush.Now, about 6.5 million people live in the Central Valley, and it is the fastest growing region in all of California. "Primary sources of population growth are people migrating from the San Francisco Bay Area seeking lower housing costs, as well as immigration from Asia, Central America, Mexico, Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union. (Wikipedia)" After English and Spanish, Hmong is the third most commonly spoken language.

Politically, the new residents of the Valley (as those who live there call it), many of whom were drawn to the area's cheaper housing, tend to be independent voters -- and that has turned this into one of California's only swing regions.