Curated category
Populated coastal places in California
- San DiegoIn 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed his flagship San Salvador into a bay he named San Miguel. He claimed the land for the Spanish…
- Oakland, CaliforniaOn the 4th of May 1852, the state legislature officially incorporated the Town of Oakland. At that moment, fewer than one hundred people lived within its…
- Dana Point, CaliforniaThe Acjachemen village site of Toovannga stood near the present-day Dana Point Harbor. People lived in villages of around 250 people and stewarded the land…
- Santa Barbara, CaliforniaSanta Barbara sits on a south-facing stretch of coastline that extends for miles along the Pacific Ocean. The Santa Ynez Mountains rise steeply behind the…
- San Jose, CaliforniaOn the 29th of November 1777, a group of settlers established the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe on the eastern bank of the Guadalupe River.
- Goleta, CaliforniaThe Chumash people inhabited the Goleta region for thousands of years before any European arrived. Locally, Spanish explorers called them Canaliños because…
- Berkeley, CaliforniaIn 1776, the De Anza Expedition arrived on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, bringing the first people of European descent to what is now Berkeley.
- San FranciscoOn the 2nd of November 1769, a Spanish exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portolá arrived at San Francisco Bay. This marked the first documented European…
- Alameda, CaliforniaFor more than 3,000 years, a local band of the Ohlone tribe inhabited the low-lying marshy region that would become Alameda.
- Los AngelesOn the 4th of September 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as Los Pobladores founded the town they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los…