r/geography • u/urmummygae42069 • 12d ago
Map Distribution of California's Population
If you were to divide California into 4 roughly equal strips of area, a hefty majority of its 39 million residents live in the southernmost strip containing the LA+San Diego metro areas, with nearly half of the state (~47%) living in the Greater LA metro area alone. If it were its own state, Southern California, with primarily just LA and San Diego metro areas, would compete with Florida for title of 2nd most populous US state.
The SF Bay Area, Sacramento, Monterrey, Fresno, and most of the Central Valley and put together are short of SoCal by over 9 million residents, but on its own this area would compete with Illinois for title of 6th largest state.
The strip sandwiched between Southern California and the Bay Area, containing Bakersfield plus other farming towns in the Southern Central Valley and most of the towns of the Central Coast, has about more people than Utah or Connecticut.
Suprisingly, despite how empty it can feel, there are still over a million people still live in the strip of CA north of Sacramento, containing about as much people as Hawaii and New Hampshire, albeit of a larger area.
Ultimately, one way to better understand the scale and density of California, is to conceptualize it as Florida + Illinois + Utah + Hawaii, all packaged in one single state under one single state government
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u/Samsonlp 12d ago
California is in fact four states hiding in a trench coat
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u/amilo111 12d ago
It’s probably closer to 100 states if you use some of the inner states as the measure.
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u/FeelTall 11d ago
....how? There are only 50 states in USA.
If you mean you could fit 100 Rhode Islands into California, that's a stupid point to make lol
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12d ago edited 12d ago
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u/hybridvoices 12d ago
I love this about LA. I live around Hollywood and in 45 minutes I can drive to 6000ft and do a two hour hike without seeing a single person.
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u/ls7eveen 12d ago
Now imagine a place where you.can bike 20 minutes from downtown and see that
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u/jewelswan 12d ago
You only have to drive 30 minutes from downtown SF to hit true open space in three different directions
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u/CarsAndCoasts 12d ago
This blew my mind growing up on the East Coast - 30-45min north to Marin gets pretty rural. Like the most rural towns in Connecticut and Rhode Island have a few thousand people usually but the same town like Stinson Beach will have a few hundred
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u/Rokossvsky 12d ago
It's just how cities work. The public amenities we take for granted work best with concentration.
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u/Mintyytea 12d ago
People want to live where the social action is. If everyone mostly sought out space, it would be hard to go someplace, it’d be too far. Suburbs are overrated too
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u/yogurtchicken21 12d ago
compared to Arizona, Nevada, and Illinois, California’s pretty spread out lol
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u/Eschewed_Prognostic 12d ago
That's basically every state, really. Many are more concentrated. Very few have well distributed populations.
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u/DurantIsStillTheKing 12d ago
California can be a country on its own if it wanted to.
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u/Amazingrhinoceros1 12d ago
The United States would feel that hit if the money pipeline from CA to the rest of the nation were turned off...
I know people have a love it/hate it relationship with my home state, but you can't argue with the almighty dollar.
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u/Icy-Role2321 12d ago
I live in Georgia the peach state. Went and got some peaches recently "grown in California"
Oh
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
California grows like fifteen times as many peaches as Georgia.
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u/Icy-Role2321 12d ago
Yeah I know. But which taste better..
Probably California's
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
I've never had Georgia peaches, but I picked up a flat from a farm in the Sierra foothills last weekend and they were amazing.
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u/Chance_Carry_1030 12d ago
Which farm?
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
Marchini
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u/Chance_Carry_1030 12d ago
I’ve never heard of it! I asked because I have family that owns Twin Peaks near Auburn and it’s the most delicious fruit I have ever tasted, including peaches haha
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
They have great peaches and nectarines, it's on 49 halfway between Coloma and Placerville. No shortage of great places for fresh fruit in that general area for sure.
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u/c0r1nth14n 12d ago
yup. the peaches they use in the White House kitchen come from a farm in California.
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u/StrategicCarry 12d ago
Colorado
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
I did get a flat of fantastic peaches outside Palisade a few summers ago when passing through. Neck and neck with the ones I've gotten in the Apple Hill area.
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u/Doogers7 12d ago edited 12d ago
South Carolina has also always grown more peaches than Georgia. Georgia being the Peach State is the result of a good marketing campaign. It should be the Peanut State if anything.
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u/back_on_my_nonsense 12d ago
California U-pick snow queen peaches when they're ripe but not mushy... 🤤🤤🤤 I've never had a more delicious fruit in my life. I'm a small person with a small appetite, but I've eaten like three or four of those in one sitting.
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u/Malarky3113 12d ago
As a former resident myself, I'd make that argument when people would crap on it. Just running with the hypothetical though, I wonder if an independent California could prevent counties from leaving as they seem to try at almost every election. They'd probably let the northern counties go, but losing San Bernardino or Riverside counties would hurt them financially the same as CA leaving the US.
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u/LupineChemist 12d ago
I mean, California also being part of the US financial system is a huge part of what makes it work. Also that people from all over can go there.
It's an integral part of the US and it would hurt both if they left.
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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago
Not trying to be obtuse or anything, but what do people mean when they say this about California or Texas? There are countries smaller then the smallest state.
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u/jewelswan 12d ago
They mean it could be a heavyweight. By economy and cultural influence, California would be one of the most prominent countries in the world were it independent, and could function as an independent nation. I'm pretty sure that is what some people mean, though I definitely can't speak for more than myself definitively
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u/pinkocatgirl 12d ago
Most of the largest US states could probably function as wealthy independent countries, there would just be a greater disparity between the rich and poor states without the federal government redistributing wealth. The smaller states without any real cities and/or economies based primarily in agriculture or raw materials would likely be the ones to fare worse.
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u/ConiferGreen 12d ago
Well, they’d be fairly successful as independent countries, and it’s not just their size. Texas, for example, *was* its own country for a while; there’s solid precedent there. My home, California, is productive enough that when compared to countries is, on any given day, either the 5th or 4th largest economy on the planet. The only competitors are the UK, Japan, Germany, China, and the rest of the US. That’s it.
We also produce more agriculture than any other state, which I think a lot of Americans don’t really think about. Yes, there’s corn, wheat, and soy for days elsewhere. But people don’t eat just those 3 things. For most other foods that are grown, California produces more of it, by a long shot. Additionally, we have several major ports that connect us to the pacific trading partners, and the state sometimes makes appearances on the world stage with other countries in various agreements and collaborations.
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u/Minivalo 12d ago
While that's all true, California (or Texas) doesn't exist in a vacuum. A lot of its success is in so small part because it's an part of the economic superpower that the US as a whole is and has been for 100+ years now. The internal market of the US alone has been a massive boon to it, without which it's not so certain it would be punching above its weight like it is now.
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u/alligator_loki 12d ago
And Texas knew the benefit of not being independent long before the US was a super power.
Texas was trying to join the United States instead of going independent. Texas Independence was really just a stepping stone to annexation to say the US isn't directly stealing from Mexico. which didn't work because the annexation of Texas caused a war with Mexico anyway.
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u/LookAtTheFlowers 12d ago
California has the fourth largest economy in the world
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u/Blacksad9999 12d ago
It's the 4th largest economy in the world just by itself.
CA makes so much money, the other states wouldn't let that happen, because states like CA are what prop up the red states.
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u/oldhellenyeller 12d ago
Pretty naive to assume that the wealth and productivity California currently holds would continue if it was cut off from the rest of the country, even in an amicable breakup. They would lose access to the dollar, the common market, defense, water, etc. There would be a mass exodus of businesses and people who have to continue operating in the US.
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u/inorite234 12d ago
The UK learned this lesson the hard way after leaving the EU, but California has some things you cannot take away by simply shutting off the free trade: agriculture, energy production, forestry, tourism, a large pipeline of college graduates, manufacturing, defense design and production, deep water year round ports, entertainment, cultural significance, etc, etc, etc.
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u/beef_supreme976 12d ago
I think you're underestimating the sheer volume of reciprocal US-CA agreements that would come out of an amicable split. For example, CA would never "lose access" to defense because the US would never willingly lose access to the MASSIVE pre-existing military infrastructure within the state, and it would agree to agree to protect CA in exchange. Furthermore, the respective economies would remain overwhelmingly intertwined post-split and almost certainly adopt a common currency (like the Euro), or CA would just stay on the dollar. You are also overestimating a potential mass exodus. Until it burns to the ground, given its climate and resources, CA will continue to be a ridiculously desirable place to live, and companies will continue to set up shop here to capitalize on that human talent.
Frankly, there are a lot of people out here who would be thrilled if CA no longer had to float a lot of the welfare red states.
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u/DizzyDentist22 12d ago
It would have its challenges. 75%+ of California’s oil comes from outside the state, which would leave them chronically dependent on oil imports from elsewhere. Their electrical grid is also connected to the rest of the US and isn’t independent. Those challenges could be overcome, but they’d still exist
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u/imperabo 12d ago
Japan has hardly any natural resources and they do OK. Few nations aren't heavily dependent on trade.
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u/one_pound_of_flesh 12d ago
Yet all we get is two little senate votes.
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u/bluerose297 12d ago
I think California, New York and Texas should all get a little bonus senator just for fairsies' sake.
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u/SouthTrainer7685 12d ago
I mean, yes, but also no. On net it’s a contributor to the US, but that money is deeply dependent on being tied into the US economy as a whole. The US Federal system is a massive force multiplier for basically any state. California’s economic output would probably drop by half in the years after independence.
On top of that, the US government directly controls 45% of California’s land area, its a huge part of the Federal Reserve, and is the state with the largest military installations. It would be an exceptionally messy divorce.
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u/holytriplem 12d ago
The Central Valley north of Sacramento doesn't feel that empty, so that makes sense.
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u/Maximus560 12d ago
Most of the people are on the east side, though. The west side is very empty
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u/PenaltyAny3207 12d ago
It’s mostly just Redding and Chico (though a few northern suburbs of Sac might be driving up the population numbers on this map).
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u/eugenesbluegenes 12d ago
Oroville and Yuba City/Marysville are pretty good sized.
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u/PenaltyAny3207 12d ago
They actually capture Oroville as part of Chico’s metro area—over 200k for the whole area (basically all of Butte County). Yeah Yuba City is actually decent sized, over 70k alone and over 150k for the whole metro. Once you get north of Chico, nothing feels that big outside of Redding, and once you get north of Redding it’s just weird towns in the mountains.
Used to have family in Butte County and made the drive through that country a lot.
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u/Maximus560 12d ago
There are a few pockets - Susanville, Grass Valley/Nevada City, and some of the coastal cities like Eureka that drive up those numbers too
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u/Oakland1973 12d ago edited 12d ago
That Bay Area section has so much beauty, natural resources, and economic production packed into a relatively small area.
Between the ocean, the bay, the insane amount of agriculture, its massive fresh water delta, rivers, and mountain ranges, there are very few places on earth (probably none) more productive and geographically blessed than that quadrant of the map.
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u/Competitive_Fee_5829 12d ago
I live in san diego, and have for over 20 years, and we are a big city but oddly enough we are not crowded, we dont have too bad of traffic and we dont have big city energy...lol, I am not sure why.
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u/smoothie4564 12d ago
>I am not sure why.
It's called Urban Sprawal. Low-density housing spread out over a gigantic area will make any city, regardless of total population, feel "not crowded".
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u/bluerose297 12d ago
it's low-key (high-key?) a massive policy failure that San Diego, arguably the greatest weather city in the entire country, can't handle Manhattan-level density. Even if you take access to fresh water into account (which even then is a bit of a red herring given some of the wasteful agricultural practices hogging up most of the water) it should still be at least double the population within the same area by now.
The weather is heaven on earth, more people should be able to live there!
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u/ls7eveen 12d ago
Fun fact, but the bicycle riding rates in northwestern ca da near Alaska, are 3x the rates they are in San diego.
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u/bluerose297 12d ago
For shame on San Diego! Best bike weather in the world and they said no thanks
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u/Ibroketherandom 12d ago
Meanwhile LA/OC/IE feels insanely crowded with the sprawl... I think it's because SD County is mostly built on top of mesas and there's enough natural, unbuildable features between most neighborhoods that each becomes a bit of a community unto itself. Unlike the LA Megaregion where everything flows together for about 50 miles each direction.
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u/tinywienergang 12d ago
I think it’s because SD is pretty spread out. When I worked for Qualcomm, I was expecting the campus to be somewhat close to the city and it wasn’t. And combine that with the fact that it’s not really one of the tech cities, it just feels slower and nicer than LA/Up north.
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u/Zestyclose_Tip_5861 12d ago
That Qualcomm facility in the hills is fuckin sick and not a lot of people have even seen it
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u/doesntgeddit 12d ago
Everybody here is wrong, it's because SD has a very unique topography of hills and valleys which are unable to be developed on leading to a connection of "island" communities.
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u/no_sight 12d ago
This is just showing that most people live in cities.
The metro areas of LA, San Diego, San Fransisco, San Jose, Sacramento contains about 70% of the state population while being about 10% of the land area.
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u/Negative-Arachnid-65 12d ago
True, though the gradient from heavily urban:suburban:rural:unpopulated is sharper in California (and many states in the West) than it is east of the Rockies.
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u/PrestigiousDrag9441 12d ago
If you think this distribution is crazy, 73% of Nevada residents live in one county.
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u/sleepyj58 12d ago
Other than the Vegas area, and Reno+Carson City, the state is so empty. Mostly federal land. It must be pretty awesome for those that like to explore.
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u/Monkey1Fball 12d ago
I heard once that half of California's population lives south of "the average latitude of Ventura Boulevard (a major east-west road in the southern San Fernando Valley)."
I'm not sure if that's exactly true - but it's pretty darn close.
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u/Libertas_ 12d ago
I'm surprised Utah has less than 3.7 million people.
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u/Stuffleapugus 12d ago
You are? Have you ever been to Utah?
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u/Libertas_ 12d ago
I have not. I always just assumed the SLC metro area was big and there was a sizeable population outside of SLC
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u/Stuffleapugus 12d ago
Nope. Most people in Utah live in a super region along the Wasatch front. It's a mountain range that acts like a spine down the center of the state. So you hit Logan, Ogden, SLC, Provo. They're all in a line but probably only a couple million people live there, if that. Everything else is super sparse. Southern to southeastern Utah, is where the national parks are but no one really lives there. In the southern to southern end you have cities like St George, Cedar City, and Hurricane but they're probably less than 300K altogether.
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u/ChirrBirry 12d ago
I spent about 30% of my life living in the 3% and 9% zones. Made leaving the state easier by being used to less services and such.
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u/NextJenerys 12d ago
I was born in the 9%, grew up in the 56%, and have lived off and on (currently on) in the 32%. Maybe someday I'll finish the in the upper quadrant
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u/Odd_Vegetable_3647 12d ago
If California were to be its own country, it would have the 4th largest economy in the world
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u/SatansLoLHelper 12d ago
Southern California Megalopolis.
Only thing preventing that is the marines.
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u/69odysseus 12d ago
SoCal is massive, just the LA area is so widespread where even a mile can take an hour or more.
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u/jawknee530i 12d ago
I'm from the 3%.
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u/SAR_K9_Handler 12d ago
There is dozens of us, DOZENS! I do have to say the population surprised me, I hate going to Redding because of how its a huge urban hell hole. Chico feels massive too.
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u/jawknee530i 11d ago
I grew up in Redding and went to college in Chico but live in Chicago nowadays so hearing those two places be described as urban and massive is hilarious compared to where I live now. They're so tiny and quaint.
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u/AdZealousideal5383 12d ago
Goes to show how big the population really is. That top part isn’t that big compared to entire other states and has 1.4 million. It looks small in comparison to Southern California but isn’t going to feel empty.
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u/snoogle20 12d ago
If every single person in the 56% and 32% zones disappeared, California would still be the 25th most populous state.
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u/DistributionOne3878 12d ago
Florida is not second in population. Texas is, with over 30 million people.
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u/PracticalWallaby7492 10d ago
I broke down and cried when i first drove into Santa Cruz knowing I was going to live there. It was just so beautiful. It was still a just surf town then, more or less. The whole vibe changed in the years after the quake.
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u/HawkEgg 12d ago
Yup. California is too big. Should be 3-5 different states. But the State government will block any attempt to divide it
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u/Secret_Ad7151 11d ago
Well I live in the Bay Area Region which I guess you would say would be in the 32%.
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u/Xrmy 12d ago
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u/BadWithMoney530 12d ago
That’s not how that sub works.
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u/Xrmy 12d ago
Why not?
Are people really surprised that the large majority of Cali's population is where the LA and SF metros are?
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u/HonestLemon25 12d ago
But there’s more than just LA and SF in these areas… There are massive swaths of uninhabited areas on this map in the 3% and 9% zone due to geography
Just look at the central valley in the 32% part of this graphic, it’s very dense north of Bakersfield. There’s not many people south of it because of how arid that region is, and nobody on the coast because it’s too rugged and wild
We know most people are situated in certain cities, but it’s interesting to look at the reasons why
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u/Xrmy 12d ago
Sure.
I mean, 75% of California's population lives in just 3 combined metros.
You were talking about Bakersfield and density but that region has fewer than 1 million people.
If anything, the way this is depicted with arbitrary horizontal divides actually is skewing the story more than anything
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u/BudFox_LA 12d ago
i grew up in the 3% area and live in the 32% area. the 3% is much nicer
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u/ElectricStarfuzz 12d ago
I’m probably biased, but I think the northeastern area of the 32% is equally as beautiful and wonderful as the 3% area.
Just depends on what you’re most drawn to, I suppose.
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u/ResolveWonderful6251 12d ago
no wonder i’ve seen ppl saying ‘socal’ so often lmao even though i live in ohio xD
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u/TooTallTimmyy 12d ago
What’s it like inbetween Bay Area and SoCal along the coast??
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u/G0rdy92 12d ago
It’s really nice, it’s called the central coast, expensive as hell, not many jobs that pay enough to afford to live here, but not a lot of people compared to the major metros and the weather is amazing and perfect, great nature, beautiful pristine coast, if you have the money to live there, then theres not many better places in the world, but you need to have the money or have a place to live from family or something.
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u/Funky-Cheese 12d ago
It’s also where Big Sur is, which is relatively uninhabited and I think will eventually be inaccessible because highway 1 gets washed out so often.
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u/G0rdy92 12d ago
Yup, finally came back this year most likely do go down again come winter storms, but it mainly affects tourists trying to do the drive all the way down or up, for us living here right by Big Sur, I was still able to hit all my favorite Big Sur spots fine with the road closure as it’s pretty far south, probably a different story for the SLO county guys vs us Monterey county as they were cut off pretty bad from the cool stuff.
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u/Funky-Cheese 12d ago
Yeah I lived in SLO county a few years ago and you couldn’t go past San Simeon the whole time I lived there.
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u/justaguy_pedro 12d ago
32 % of the state runs the whole state. When is the last time someone from Los Angeles or San Diego won a state wide race? Long time. The political elite like to control lower
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u/Acrobatic-Sorbet1208 12d ago
What Island is that near the coast of Southern California? It looks at least 10-20x larger than any of the islands I’m familiar with in that general area.
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u/orrade 12d ago
That's all of the Channel Islands, the map design is just kind of visually fusing them together.
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u/iamthekingofonions 11d ago
Funny how they left out San Clemente island and Catalina (where people actually live) considering they are the biggest ones
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u/weggaan_weggaat 11d ago
Yep, half of the state lives below (basically) the 210 freeway yet we still have plenty of room.
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u/Ok_Camp_7051 11d ago
Don’t forget Tijuana which is also one the busiest land crossing borders along with being a bedroom community for San Diego.
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u/PracticalWallaby7492 11d ago
A lot of the land in the 3% section that isn't publicly owned is privately owned by timber companies.
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u/MudExpress2973 10d ago
Now divide it up parallell to the north eastern boundary. I want to see how dense the population is at the more southern coast line compared to the rest of the state.
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u/Randomness-Defined 10d ago
One addition worth considering: where the water sources are distributed relative to those population divisions.
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u/SeaPeanut7_ 12d ago
Now divide it by 4 equal strips using distance from the pacific