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One of America's most famous and notorious states, California - sitting along the country's Pacific coast in the far west - can be regarded as representing a microcosm of what America is materialistically and idealistically. It is the most populous U.S. state, with 38 million residents, and has the world's fifth-largest economy. The gold rush of 1849 brought settlers there much earlier than other parts of the west, and it was consequently able to achieve statehood much faster - becoming state number 31 on September 9, 1850.

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California's three most populous regions are Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area (San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose). The Inland Empire (San Bernardino/Riverside) situated just east of L.A., Bakersfield, Fresno, Santa Barbara, and state capital Sacramento are some other prominent areas in the state. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south, with Tijuana being a quick trip across the border from San Diego. The state's Central Valley runs several hundred miles south-to-north from Bakersfield to Redding in the state's north, and forms a large, flat basin surrounded by tall mountains. Inyo County along the Nevada border contains both the lowest (Death Valley) and highest (Mount Whitney) points in the continental U.S., with a height difference of more than 14,000 feet above sea level. Mount Shasta, another fourteener, towers above the state's far-north. Joshua Tree, Sequoia and Yosemite national parks offer some of the country's best natural wonders. Meanwhile, Lake Tahoe sits along the Nevada border.

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Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S. behind New York with a population of just under 4 million, is home to a prominent and lasting movie industry; numerous films have been shot there over the years owing to the quality of the area's sunlight and how well it works with top-tier filming equipment. The city's Hollywood area with its famous sign is used as a nickname for the American movie industry in general. Beverly Hills in the north is renowned for its mansions, many of them celebrity-owned. The Hollywood Walk of Fame in the city honors entertainment stars from across the globe going back nearly a full century. Suburbs Huntington Beach and Santa Monica offer fishing piers and world-class surfing along the Pacific Ocean. The San Gabriel Mountains and Angeles National Forest lie just to the north. Stanford and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are among the higher education institutions in the area. Nearby Anaheim is home to Disneyland.

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In the Bay Area, one can find the Golden Gate Bridge connecting the north side of San Francisco to Marin County, and the winding Lombard Street. There are the Presidio and Golden Gate parks, Candlestick Point just to the south, the Fisherman's Wharf, and the famed Alcatraz Island and prison just above the city's north shoreline. Oakland has Lake Merritt and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Alameda Island lies just to Oakland's south, the Berkeley Marina due north, and the Berkeley Hills to the east, separating it from the area's eastern outskirts like the cities of Concord and Walnut Creek. Further to the south, San Diego, declaring itself America's Finest City, contains the Coronado naval base and Air Station Miramar, along with San Diego Bay and Imperial Beach. The city is located just over the Mexican border and forms a cross-border hub with Tijuana.

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California is an indisputable cultural hub as well. On top of its prolific film and television industry, the Golden State has produced numerous seminal movements in popular music. Los Angeles in particular birthed surf rock at the turn of the 1960s headed by the Beach Boys and Dick Dale, and 1960s folk rock. The Bay Area spawned jam bands associated with 1960s counterculture like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Both areas also spawned their own punk rock scenes during the late 1970s and early 1980s with the likes of hardcore bands X, the Germs and the Dead Kennedys, and more melodic groups like Green Day and AFI. In the 1990s, ska punk bands Sublime, No Doubt and Reel Big Fish came out of Orange County. Meanwhile, rappers like Ice Cube, Coolio, Dr. Dre and Eazy-E emerged from Inglewood and Compton.

 

The state has additionally contributed widely to the world of professional sports. Specifically, in the National Football League, the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders account for 9 of the 60 Lombardi Trophies handed out to date - nearly one out of every six. The Los Angeles Lakers have the most NBA championships in history, and the league's Golden State Warriors came alive in the second half of the 2010s with three championships after decades of obscurity. Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers have won eight of their nine World Series and 14 of their 26 National League pennants since moving from Brooklyn, New York in 1959. L.A.'s other Major League team, the American League's Angels, also have one pennant and world championship to their name. The San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics had a crosstown rivalry in the Bay Area for 56 years, playing an earthquake-interrupted World Series in 1989; individually, the latter enjoyed a dynasty in the mid-1970s, and the former - who once played up the street from the Dodgers in New York - in the first half of the 2010s. California even has three NHL teams, two in greater L.A. - the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, who have lifted the Stanley Cup a combined three times, and the Bay Area's San Jose Sharks.

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California's most important Interstate highway would have to be Interstate 5, which runs nearly 800 miles south-to-north from the Mexican border just south of San Diego to the Oregon border at Hilt in Siskiyou County. I-5 runs straight through Santa Ana, Anaheim and Los Angeles and up the Central Valley, just west of Bakersfield, through Stockton and Sacramento, and up through Redding and the Shasta region. I-5's spur routes in the state are I-105 from the south edge of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Norwalk via Compton, I-205 in Stockton/Tracy, I-405 west and south of L.A. passing just north of Long Beach, I-605 roughly along the Los Angeles/Orange County border, I-505 in the western Sacramento Valley linking I-5 with I-80, and the unsigned I-305 on the west side of Sacramento. The state's other primary north-south Interstate highway is Interstate 15, which begins in San Diego and runs through San Bernardino (thereby barely missing greater L.A.) and Barstow before turning toward the east through the Mojave Desert into Nevada.

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The state has four major east-west Interstates. Interstate 8 runs along the Mexican border from San Diego to a crossing of the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona. Interstate 10 begins in Santa Monica, makes its way through greater L.A. and the Inland Empire and Palm Springs, before making its way into Arizona after just over 200 miles. Interstate 40 begins at I-15 in Barstow and runs through the southern Mojave into Arizona, crossing the Colorado just east of Needles. Finally, Interstate 80 begins at U.S. Route 101 in downtown San Francisco, crosses the Bay Bridge, makes its way through the western outskirts of Oakland and into the Central Valley at Vacaville, then bisects Sacramento before eventually easing its way through the Sierra Nevada and exiting into Nevada within the Tahoe National Forest. I-10 has the following spur routes in Southern California: I-110 from San Pedro near the Port of L.A. to I-10 in downtown L.A., I-210 parallel to the San Gabriels from San Fernando to Glendora by way of Pasadena, and I-710 from Terminal Island in west Long Beach to Valley Boulevard just north of I-10 beside Cal State. I-80 has 7 auxiliary routes in the state, all in the Bay Area: the most major of there are I-280 from San Jose to San Francisco (running west of the Bay parallel to the Santa Cruz Mountains), I-580 from San Rafael to I-5 just south of Tracy in the Central Valley (passing through Oakland, Hayward and Pleasanton), and I-880, which connects the downtowns of Oakland and San Jose.