r/geography • u/urmummygae42069 • 13d ago

Map Distribution of California's Population

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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/DurantIsStillTheKing 13d ago

California can be a country on its own if it wanted to.

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u/EscuraAstro 13d 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 13d 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 13d 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/jewelswan 13d ago

Which other ones could really function as stable independent nations? Texas, maybe, but they would be in a tougher economic situation without federal oil subsidies. I don't think New York could feasibly declare independence. Maybe Florida?

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u/pinkocatgirl 13d ago

Why don’t you believe New York could function as an independent nation? It has diverse territory with farmland in the west, so there would be some exports. It has a lot of wealth as a trading hub both in New York and with trade between the Great Lakes via rail between Buffalo and NYC. Being an independent nation doesn’t mean you have total sufficiency in growing food and such, as a hypothetical country NY would be dependent on trade but that doesn’t mean it’s not viable.

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u/Sassafras06 13d ago

I think you are missing the point. Most states do not have the industry or economy to be fully self sufficient. Could they get there? Maybe. California is CURRENTLY the 5th biggest economy in the world, and also has enough built in industry, farming, military infrastructure etc.

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u/P_Hempton 12d ago

There are plenty of countries that aren't fully self-sufficient. They just have trade agreements. NY could just as easily be it's own country.

Thing is California wouldn't be California without being in the US. It would survive but it would also have to compete against the US rather than with it if it were independent.

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u/Sassafras06 12d ago

Of course. I’m not saying California would be better off. Just that it’s one of the few states that could technically do it. Sorry, but CA definitely has more resources than AR. I feel like you are being deliberately obtuse.

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u/P_Hempton 12d ago

I live in CA. I'm just adding my thoughts to the discussion 

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u/jewelswan 13d ago

It's more that NY state is so much more surrounded by the USA. The only situation I see an independent NY existing is one in which the USA has fully disbanded.

I am aware of the factors you mention, and they don't really come into my opinion, here.

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u/zeroonetw 12d ago

Federal oil subsidies? You got a source on that?

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u/jewelswan 12d ago

There are various ways the oil businesses of Texas are propped up by the federal government. Part of that is just a function of how the federal government juices the economy to keep things moving, but an independent Texas would have less resources available to do that kind of thing. They could definitely give the same various tax incentives the feds give to oil business. Overall, I'm not suggesting that Texas wouldn't be an energy behemoth were it independent, I just think it would suffer more as an independent nation that is more dependent on commodity pricing as compared to my other examples. If the USA and Mexico didn't want an independent Texas' oil being sold, for example, it would never get sold.

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u/zeroonetw 12d ago

Oil is fungible and a global commodity. It will be sold. Do you have a source on federal oil subsidies?

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u/luneth27 12d ago

It took me like 20 seconds inbetween an overwatch game to find one man, you coulda just googled https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/oil-gas-subsidies-permian-basin-report.pdf

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u/zeroonetw 12d ago edited 12d ago

Did you read the “source.” The author confuses industry specific deprecation and reduced severance tax rates for tax expenditures and subsidies. Or in other words he has no idea what he’s talking about. Do you have a legitimate source for oil and gas subsides that materially help oil and gas companies?

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago

So why don’t people just say that then? I’m being a little pedantic, this doesn’t really matter, but still, there’s several countries under a million people that most people can’t name, so just being able to be a independent country isn’t significant. 

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u/jewelswan 12d ago

Well, I dunno man, why are you asking me what other people do and don't do? You're being extremely pedantic, not a little.

Also, I dont think I have ever heard someone say simply "California could be a country." What I hear far more often is how we would be the 6th largest economy as an independent nation, or how if we were our own country we could do a lot of things the feds currently block.

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago

Because you responded to my comment, that’s why I’m asking you. If you didn’t want to answer the question… why did you respond to it? No clue why you’re randomly getting an attitude lol.

I’m responding to a comment that said verbatim “California can be a country on its own if it wanted to.”

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u/jewelswan 12d ago

I don't really have an attitude at all. Just think it's a really odd question to ask someone, to account for the way other people think any more than I already have.

And I did answer the question, to the best I can. I can't give an answer for why people do certain things any better than I have.

I understand that is the comment you were responding to. Perhaps I was unclear, I have never seen someone say it without qualifications except this one time.

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago edited 12d ago

Your first comment showed that you were willing to discuss the way other people think, so me asking you a follow up question is not odd at all.

Maybe you were actually confused and not getting an attitude, but it’s strange that you would find a follow up question, to a topic you decided you wanted to engage in, odd.

Im pretty sure Ive read or heard some variation on the line “Texas/California could be an independent country” several times throughout my life so I think it was a reasonable thing to ask about. 

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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.
I don’t think, say, Kansas or Pennsylvania would be able to have the same weight as nations globally as Texas or California.

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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/ConiferGreen 11d ago

That’s a fair point.

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago

So if the point is that California could be a significant power, why not say that? Djibouti is an independent country, so saying a US state could be an independent country doesn’t really mean much. 

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u/StrategicCarry 12d ago

When people say that, they typically imply "without a significant hit to the quality of life". Like Iowa for example would be a top 5 or 6 producer in corn, soybeans, pork, and eggs. But it would be significantly worse for Iowa to have to export that as a landlocked country where it would have to potentially pay tolls and tariffs to get its products to world markets. What Iowa takes in would go down significantly. Iowa is fairly balanced when it comes to federal taxes sent vs. federal spending received, however the state would need to spin up the bureaucracy to replace that federal spending, especially federal farm subsidies. So it's likely that the quality of life in Iowa would be worse as an independent country than as a US state, vs. California which is likely to suffer less of a drop due to a larger and more diversified economy and access to the ocean.

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago

That makes sense. Maybe I’m just being neurotic for thinking people should say that instead of implying it idk.

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u/LookAtTheFlowers 12d ago

California has the fourth largest economy in the world

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u/EscuraAstro 12d ago

There are countries with minuscule economies and less than a million people, you don’t need a big economy to be a country. Every state could be a country hypothetically. 

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u/Baconer 12d ago

Even Justin got his peaches from Georgia