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San Diego County, California

Coordinates: 33°01′N 116°46′W / 33.02°N 116.77°W / 33.02; -116.77
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County of San Diego
County
Official seal of County of San Diego
Seal
Location in the state of California
Location in the state of California
California's location in the United States
California's location in the United States
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
metropolitan areaSan Diego metropolitan area
municipal corporation1850
county seatSan Diego
largest citySan Diego
Area
 • Total4,525.52 sq mi (11,721.0 km2)
 • Land4,199.89 sq mi (10,877.7 km2)
 • Water325.62 sq mi (843.4 km2)
Population
 (2010 Census)
3,095,313
 • Density737/sq mi (285/km2)
Time zoneUTC-8 (Pacific Standard Time)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Websitesdcounty.ca.gov

San Diego County is a county located in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. Hence, San Diego County is also located in the southwestern corner of the 48 contiguous United States. Both the county seat and largest city of San Diego County is the city of San Diego. The population of San Diego County was about 2,813,835 in the 2000 U.S. Census. In July 2008, an estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau set its population at about 3,001,000 people, making San Diego County the third-most-populous county in California, just behind its northern neighbors Orange County and Los Angeles County.[1] Its population in 2009 was estimated at 3,208,466,[2] making it the fifth most-populous county in the United States and giving it a population greater than 20 of the 50 U.S. states.

San Diego County has 70 miles (110 km) of coastline.It has a mild Mediterranean to semi-arid climate.[3] Also in this county are 16 significant naval and military locations of the United States Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Coast Guard, including Naval Base San Diego, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, and Naval Air Station North Island.

San Diego County defines the metropolitan statistical area of San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, and in its metropolitan capacity is also known as Greater San Diego. In addition, San Diego County is part of the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area, an area with above five million people and the largest bi-national metropolitan area shared between the United States and Mexico. San Diego County is categorized in the economic region "South Border" along with Imperial County for convenience which is the smallest but most economically diverse region in the state, though the two counties maintain weak relations and have little in common, aside from their border proximity.[4]

San Diego County extends south all the way to the Mexican border, which is also the northern border of the State of Baja California and the northern municipal limits of Tijuana Municipality. San Diego County is bordered by Orange County and Riverside County on its north, by Imperial County on its east, and the Pacific Ocean on its west and southwest.

History

The area which is now San Diego County has been inhabited for more than 10,000 years by Kumeyaay (also called Diegueño), Luiseño, Cupeño and Cahuilla Indians.[5]

European settlement in what is now San Diego County began with the founding of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, by Spanish pioneers, in 1769. This county was part of Alta California under the Viceroyalty of New Spain until the Mexican revolution. From 1821 through 1848 this area was part of Mexico.

San Diego County became part of the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, ending the U.S.-Mexican War. This treaty designated the new border as terminating at a point on the Pacific Ocean coast which would result in the border passing one Spanish league south of the southernmost portion of San Diego Bay, thus ensuring that the United States received all of this natural harbor.

San Diego County was one of the original counties of California, and it was created at the time of California statehood in 1850.[6] San Diego County was named for San Diego Bay, which had been rechristened in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno in honor of the Franciscan St. Didacus of Alcalá, known in Spanish as San Diego de Alcalá de Henares, and whose name was borne by Vizcaíno's flagship.

As originally created in 1850 San Diego County was quite large, and it included all of southmost California that was south and east of Los Angeles County. As such it included major parts of what are now Inyo County and San Bernardino County, and all of Riverside County and Imperial County.[6]

During the later part of the 19th century, there were numerous changes in the boundaries of San Diego County, when various areas were sliced off to form the newer counties mentioned above. The most recent changes were the creation of Riverside County in 1893[7] and Imperial County in 1907.[8] Imperial County was the last new county to be established in California, and after this division, San Diego no longer extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Colorado River, and it no longer covered the entire border between California and Mexico.

Geography

North County communities. Coastal cities are in dark blue, unincorporated coastal communities are in light blue. Inland cities are in dark yellow, unincorporated inland communities are in light yellow.

*This map does not show neighborhoods of the city of San Diego that are considered to be part of North County, such as Del Mar Heights, Rancho Peñasquitos, and Rancho Bernardo)
*Some areas in white in this general region that are in white would be also considered part of North County, but only cities and unincorporated communities are colored on this map.
East County communities in red. In dark red are the cities and towns of Santee and El Cajon which mark the western edge of East County. Unincorporated communities are in light red, including Lakeside and Alpine.
South Bay communities of San Diego County. The cities and towns of National City, Chula Vista, and Imperial Beach are in dark orange. The unincorporated community of Bonita is in light orange. San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, neighborhoods of the city of San Diego, are in pink.

According to the 2000 census, the county has a total area of 4,525.52 square miles (11,721.0 km2), of which 4,199.89 square miles (10,877.7 km2) (or 92.80%) is land and 325.62 square miles (843.4 km2) (or 7.20%) is water.[9]

The county is bigger in area than the combined states of Rhode Island and Delaware.[10]

San Diego County has a varied topography. On its western side is 70 miles (110 km) of coastline.[11] Most of San Diego between the coast and the Laguna Mountains consists of hills, mesas, and small canyons. Snow-capped (in winter) mountains rise to the northeast, with the Sonoran Desert to the far east. Cleveland National Forest is spread across the central portion of the county, while the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park occupies most of the northeast.

North San Diego County is known as North County; the exact geographic definitions of "North County" vary, but it includes the northern suburbs and sometimes certain northern neighborhoods of the City of San Diego.

The eastern suburbs are collectively known as East County, though most still lie in the western third of the county. The southern suburbs and southern detached portion of the city of San Diego, extending to the Mexican border, are collectively referred to as South Bay. While the desert region in the north east of the county is known as Borrego.

Largest cities in San Diego County by population

Largest cities (2010 census population):

Largest towns, 2010 Census
City Population
San Diego
1,387,000
Chula Vista
244,000
Oceanside
182,000
Escondido
151,000
Vista
99,000
El Cajon
97,000
San Marcos
89,000
Encinitas
62,000

Cities and towns in San Diego County

Incorporated cities and towns

Many of the cities seen from the sky as part of the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area.

Unincorporated communities

Indian reservations

San Diego County has 18 federally recognized Indian reservations, more than any other county in the United States.[12] Although they are typical in size to other Indian reservations in California (many of which are termed "Rancherías"), they are relatively tiny by national standards,[citation needed] and all together total 200.2 square miles (518.5 km²) of area.

Boundaries (counties and municipalities)

National protected areas

  • Cabrillo National Monument
  • Cleveland National Forest (part)
  • San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes several individual wildlife refuge areas:[13]
    • San Diego Bay South Bay
    • San Diego Bay Sweetwater Marsh
    • Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge
    • Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge (located in Orange County)
    • San Diego National Wildlife Refuge
    • Vernal Pools

State parks and protected areas

Mountains

There are 236 mountain summits and peaks in San Diego County[14] including:

Bays and Lagoons

Lakes

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates
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"columns-start" Yes Yes {{columns-start}} {{column}} {{columns-end}}
Columns "div col" Yes Yes {{div col}} – {{div col end}}
"columns-list" No Yes {{columns-list}} (wraps div col) – –
Flexbox "flex columns" No Yes {{flex columns}} – –
Table "col" Yes No {{col-begin}},
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† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Rivers

Transportation in San Diego County

Main article: Transportation in San Diego County

Major Highways

Border crossings to Mexico

San Ysidro Border Crossing
Otay Mesa Border Crossing
Tecate Border Crossing

Railroads

AMTRAK (Pacific Surfliner)
Metrolink
The Coaster
San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway
San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad Sprinter (North County)

Light rail and local transit

San Diego Trolley
San Diego Metropolitan Transit System
Sprinter
North County Transit District

The Port of San Diego

Embarcadero (San Diego)

Primary Civilian Airports

Education

San Diego County contains three public state universities: University of California, San Diego; San Diego State University; and California State University, San Marcos. Major private universities in the county include University of San Diego (USD), Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU), Alliant International University (AIU), and National University.

Within the county there are 24 public elementary school districts, 6 high school districts, and 12 unified school districts. There are also 5 community college districts.[15]

There are two separate public library systems in San Diego County: the San Diego Public Library serving the city of San Diego, and the San Diego County Library serving all other areas of the county. In 2010 the county library had 33 branches and two bookmobiles; circulated over 10.7 million books, CDs, DVDs, and other material formats; recorded 5.7 million visits to library branches; and hosted 21,132 free programs and events. The San Diego County Library is one of the 25 busiest libraries in the nation as measured by materials circulated.[16][17]

Significant Naval and Military stations

U.S. Navy

U.S. Marine Corps

U.S. Coast Guard

Sites of interest

Politics

San Diego County vote
by party in presidential elections
Year GOP DEM Others
2008 44.1% 539,939 54.3% 664,685 1.7% 19,270
2004 52.5% 596,033 46.4% 526,437 1.1% 12,378
2000 49.6% 475,736 45.7% 437,666 4.7% 45,232
1996 45.8% 402,876 44.1% 389,964 10.3% 91,311
1992 35.7% 352,125 37.2% 367,397 27.1% 267,124
1988 60.2% 523,143 38.3% 333,264 1.5% 12,788
1984 65.3% 502,344 33.4% 257,029 1.3% 9,894
1980 60.8% 435,910 27.3% 195,410 11.9% 85,546
1976 55.7% 353,302 41.6% 263,654 2.7% 16,839
1972 61.8% 371,627 34.3% 206,455 3.8% 23,055
1968 56.3% 261,540 36.1% 167,669 7.7% 35,654
1964 50.3% 214,445 49.7% 211,808 0.0% 33
1960 56.4% 233,045 43.3% 171,259 0.3% 1,106
1956 64.5% 195,742 35.2% 106,716 0.4% 1,147
1952 63.5% 186,091 35.9% 105,255 0.6% 1,688
1948 49.4% 101,552 47.8% 98,217 2.8% 5,690
1944 45.4% 75,746 53.9% 89,959 0.6% 1,059
1940 43.3% 55,434 55.6% 71,188 1.2% 1,488
1936 35.0% 35,686 63.5% 64,628 1.5% 1,540
1932 41.5% 35,305 53.6% 45,622 5.0% 4,223
1928 67.1% 47,769 32.0% 22,749 0.9% 633
1924 49.0% 22,726 6.4% 2,944 44.7% 20,721
1920 63.8% 19,826 27.3% 8,478 9.0% 2,783


San Diego County has historically been a Republican stronghold: 2008 was the first time in decades that a Democratic presidential nominee won a majority of the county's votes (though in 1992 Bill Clinton won a plurality). The city of San Diego itself is more Democratic than the county's average (though fairly moderate for a large city) and has voted for Democrats Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama in the last five presidential elections respectively. The city of San Diego, as well as Coronado and Imperial Beach, is part of the 53rd congressional district which has a Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI) of D +12. San Diego's northern and eastern suburbs tend to be very conservative. Northern suburbs including Carlsbad are part of the 50th district with a CPVI of R +5. In the 2004 presidential election, San Diego, Encinitas, National City, Del Mar, and some other areas voted for John Kerry; San Marcos, Escondido, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Coronado, Santee, Poway, El Cajon, and Vista overwhelmingly backed George W. Bush. Chula Vista, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Solana Beach, and Imperial Beach are considered swing areas of the county – Chula Vista and Imperial Beach narrowly backed Al Gore in 2000 but narrowly voted for Bush in 2004, while Solana Beach switched from Bush in 2000 to Kerry in 2004. La Mesa narrowly voted for Bush both times, and Lemon Grove narrowly went Democratic both times. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to win a majority of votes in San Diego County since World War II. Obama captured Chula Vista, Oceanside, and Carlsbad.

One unique feature of the political scene is the use of Golden Hall, a convention facility next to City Hall, as a central elections center. The County Registrar of Voters rents the hall to distribute election results. Supporters and political observers are invited to watch the results come in, candidates give their victory and concession speeches and host parties for campaign volunteers and donors at the site, and television stations broadcast from the floor of the convention center. Golden Hall was scheduled to be closed in 2004, but was reused again for the November 2005 special election. The atmosphere on the evening of election day is often comparable to the voting portion of a political party national convention.[18]

In the House of Representatives, all of California's 50th, 52nd, and 53rd districts and parts of the 49th and 51st districts are in the county. By district, the seats are held by Republican Darrell Issa, Republican Brian Bilbray, Democrat Bob Filner, Republican Duncan D. Hunter, and Democrat Susan Davis.

On Nov. 4, 2008 San Diego County voted 53.8 % for Proposition 8 which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, thus restoring Proposition 22 which was overturned by a ruling from the California Supreme Court. However the city of San Diego, along with Del Mar, Encinitas, and Solana Beach, voted against Proposition 8.[19]

In the State Assembly, parts of the 66th and 73rd districts, and all of the 74th–79th districts are in the county. Districts 76 and 79 are held by Democrats, Lori Saldaña and Mary Salas respectively; the others are held by Republicans; by district they are Kevin Jeffries, Mimi Walters, Martin Garrick, George A. Plescia, Joel Anderson, and Shirley Horton.

In the State Senate, all of the 39th district and parts of the 36th, 38th, and 40th districts are in the county and are held by Republicans Dennis Hollingsworth and Mark Wyland, and Democrats Christine Kehoe and Denise Moreno Ducheny.

District Location Cook PVI % for Bush, 2004 Median household income[20] Per capita income[20]
49th district Northern San Diego and southwestern Riverside County R +10 63% $46,445 $19,659
50th district Northern San Diego County, including costal communities such as Carlsbad, California but excluding La Jolla R +5 55% $59,813 $29,877
51st district Southern San Diego County, including Chula Vista and National City. Also includes all of Imperial County D +7 46% $39,243 $14,923
52nd district Eastern San Diego County, including La Mesa, El Cajon and Lakeside. R +9 61% $52,940 $24,544
53rd district San Diego including La Jolla, Coronado and Imperial Beach D +12 39% $36,637 $21,715
Mean Districts: 49th, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 53rd R +5 52.8% $47,016 $22,144

County Board of Supervisors

As of December 2010 the members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors are:

  • Greg Cox, District 1
  • Dianne Jacob, District 2
  • Pam Slater-Price, District 3, Chairwoman
  • Ron Roberts, District 4
  • Bill Horn, District 5, Vice-Chairman

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1850798—
18604,324441.9%
18704,95114.5%
18808,01861.9%
189034,987336.4%
190035,0900.3%
191061,66575.7%
1920112,24882.0%
1930209,65986.8%
1940289,34838.0%
1950556,80892.4%
19601,033,01185.5%
19701,357,85431.4%
19801,861,84637.1%
19902,498,01634.2%
20002,813,83312.6%
2008 (est.)3,001,072

As of 2009 Census Bureau estimates, there were 3,053,793 people, 1,067,846 households, and 663,449 families residing in the county. The population density was 670 people per square mile (259/km²). There were 1,142,245 housing units at an average density of 248 per square mile (96/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 79.4% White American, 5.6% Black or African American, 1% Native American, 10.4% Asian, 0.5% Pacific Islander, 10.3% from other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. 31.3% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 67.0% spoke only English at home; 21.9% spoke Spanish, 3.1% Tagalog and 1.2% Vietnamese.

In 2000 there were 994,677 households out of which 33.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.7% were married couples living together, 11.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.3% were non-families. 24.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.73 and the average family size was 3.29.

In the county the population was spread out with 25.7% under the age of 18, 11.30% from 18 to 24, 32.0% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 11.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 101.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.7 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $47,067, and the median income for a family was $53,438. Males had a median income of $36,952 versus $30,356 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,926. About 8.9% of families and 12.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.5% of those under age 18 and 6.8% of those age 65 or over.

Current estimates

According to estimates by the San Diego Association of Governments, the median household income of San Diego County in 2005 was $64,273 (not adjusted for inflation). When adjusted for inflation (1999 dollars; comparable to Census data above), the median household income was $52,192.

Crime statistics

Crime statistics for 2005 (Reported by the sheriff's office or police)[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ U.S. Census Quickfacts
  2. ^ Showley, Roger (December 18, 2009). "S.D. County's population tops 3.2 million". San Diego Union Tribune.
  3. ^ climate map
  4. ^ [1] Economics
  5. ^ kumeyaay website
  6. ^ a b Coy, Owen C.; Ph.D. (1923). California County Boundaries. Berkeley: California Historical Commission. p. 221. ASIN B000GRBCXG.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Ibid. 207
  8. ^ Ibid. 113
  9. ^ "Census 2000 U.S. Gazetteer Files: Counties". United States Census. Retrieved 2011-02-13.
  10. ^ [2]
  11. ^ Gerber, James ed. Economic Profile of the San Diego-Tijuana Region: Characteristics for Investment and Governance Decisions. Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias. 1995. p.11
  12. ^ University of San Diego
  13. ^ San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex website
  14. ^ MountainZone.com
  15. ^ San Diego County Board of Education
  16. ^ http://www.sdcl.org/aboutus.html
  17. ^ http://dbpcosdcsgt.co.san-diego.ca.us/screens/AR2010/index.html
  18. ^ Amid the celebrations, farewell | The San Diego Union-Tribune
  19. ^ San Diego County Proposition 8 Results by Community
  20. ^ a b "US Census Bureau, 2000 Census income data by congressional district". Retrieved 2007-05-31.
  21. ^ "city-data - San_Diego_County-CA". analyzed data from numerous sources. Retrieved 2009-04-18.

Template:USLargestMetros 33°01′N 116°46′W / 33.02°N 116.77°W / 33.02; -116.77

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