Description
Northern California is not a formal geographic designation. California's north-south midway division is around 37° latitude, near the level of San Francisco. Popularly, though, "Northern California" usually refers to the state's northernmost 48 counties. The term is also applied to the area north of the Tehachapi Mountains.
Because of California's large size and diverse geography, the state can be subdivided in other ways as well. For example, the Central Valley is a distinct region in itself both culturally and topographically from coastal California, though in Northern versus Southern California divisions, the Sacramento Valley and most of the San Joaquin Valley are usually placed in Northern California.
The state is often considered as having an additional division north of the urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento metropolitan areas. Extreme northern residents have felt under-represented in state government and in 1941 attempted to form a new state with southwestern Oregon to be called Jefferson, or more recently to introduce legislation to split California into two or three states. The region north of Sacramento is referred by locals as the Northstate. Since 2001, the 20 northernmost counties have promoted the region from Point Arena to Lake Tahoe and northward as Upstate California.
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