California is a federal state of the United States located on the southwestern coast of the country. It is consolidated as the most populous state of the nation, having more than 39 million inhabitants and is the third largest (after Alaska and Texas). California shares border with Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. It also has the second and fifth most populated areas of the nation, the Greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area and eight of the country's most populated cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach, and Oakland. Sacramento is the state capital.
California State Map
The area was inhabited millennially by Native Americans before the first European expeditions in the 16th century. These settlers were divided in 105 American Indian peoples who spoke the languages of six different linguistic families.4 The Spanish Crown colonized the areas of the coast of the territory in 1769 before it became part of Mexico after the War of Independence of Mexico (1810-1821). California was part of Mexican territory until the war between Mexico and the United States of 1846-1848. At the end of the war, and as a condition for peace, the Mexican Republic was forced to surrender the territory to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Gold Rush in the period 1848-1849 led to immigration of 90,000 Americans from the rest of the country. Finally, California became the thirty-first state of the United States in 1850.
If California were an independent nation, it would be the tenth largest economy in the world with a GDP of about $ 2.3 trillion, data for 2014, representing 13.9% of the United States' gross domestic product , Which amounts to a total of 14 trillion dollars. The main economic activities of the State are agriculture, leisure, electricity and tourism. California is home to some of the world's most important economic cities, such as Los Angeles (entertainment, leisure), Central Valley (agriculture), Silicon Valley (computer science and high technology) and Napa Valley.
Originally the word California referred to a wider region, made up of the territory of the present state of California plus all or part of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming and the Mexican peninsula of California. The theory most supported is that the word California derives from the name of the regent of a fictitious paradise dominated by black amazons, Queen Califia. The myth of Califia is recorded in a work of 1510, Las hazañas de Esplandián, fifth sequel to Amadís de Gaula, written by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.
The kingdom of Califia or Calafia is described by Montalvo as a remote land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts and rich in gold:
California is the fifth oldest name of European origin in the United States. It was imposed on the Spanish expedition led by Diego de Becerra and Fortún Jiménez, who called the island of California to the lower end of the California peninsula when they landed there in 1533 by order of Hernán Cortés.
It is known that on the right hand side of the Indies there is an island called California, very close to that part of the earthly paradise that is inhabited by black women, without a single man among them, who live in the style of the Amazons. They had a strong body, strong, passionate hearts and great virtues. The island itself is one of the wildest in the world because of its steep and striking rocks. Their weapons are all made of gold. The island is filled with gold and precious stones everywhere, to the point that there are no other metals.
California is the fifth oldest name of European origin in the United States. It was imposed on the Spanish expedition led by Diego de Becerra and Fortún Jiménez, who called the island of California to the lower end of the California peninsula when they landed there in 1533 by order of Hernán Cortés.
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