If California were a country, its economy would top most nations
California, on the Pacific coast of the United States, is home to over 39 million people, more than any other state. Its economy, worth about $4.3 trillion in 2025, is the largest sub-national economy on Earth and would rank fourth among countries, just behind Germany and ahead of Japan.
The state covers 163,696 square miles, third among states, bordered by Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico's Baja California. Its terrain runs from redwood and Douglas fir forest in the north-west to the Mojave Desert in the south-east, with the Sierra Nevada inland, and it carries two-thirds of the nation's earthquake risk. Los Angeles is the biggest city, Sacramento the capital, and farms lead the country in output of dairy, almonds and grapes.
The name probably comes from a 1510 romance by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo about Queen Calafia, who ruled an island of gold and pearls where warrior women bred griffins. At least 300,000 people from more than 70 ethnic groups lived here before Europeans came, making it among the most diverse corners of pre-Columbian North America. They practised forest gardening and controlled burning, a fire-management technique the state government formally recognised in 2022.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo's Spanish expedition entered San Diego Bay on 28 September 1542, and Francis Drake claimed part of the coast in 1579. The Portolá expedition of 1769–70 founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá and its presidio, and Junípero Serra's missionaries went on to build 21 missions along El Camino Real, seeds of San Francisco, Ventura and Santa Barbara. Russian traders held Fort Ross on the north coast from 1812 until they gave it up by 1841.
Mexico's independence in 1821 brought California under Mexican rule, and its missions were secularised by 1834, their land passing to vast cattle ranchos. After the American conquest during the Mexican-American War, Mexico handed the territory to the United States in 1848. The gold rush that began the same year transformed its society and population, and brought the California genocide against Indigenous peoples.
Source: California
