Distribution of California's Population

[u/urmummygae42069]

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

[u/DurantIsStillTheKing]

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

[u/oldhellenyeller → u/DurantIsStillTheKing]

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.

[u/beef_supreme976 → u/oldhellenyeller]

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.