California: Under the Geographer’s Microscope

California: Under the Geographer’s Microscope

I’m a geography professor writing a series on what’s unique or different about each of the fifty states. Follow me on Medium.com for more coming shortly.

Land of Natural Diversity

All the states from the Rockies to the west have great geographic diversity — mountains, deserts, forests. They make their small, flattish Eastern cousins look plain and featureless. It’s the sheer magnitude of that diversity — topography, climate, and vegetation — that stuns us in California.

Here in California is the tallest mountain in the continental USA. Mt. Whitney, king of the Sierra Nevada range, backbone of the state. The peak stands just 1400 feet shy of three miles tall. Just a hundred miles away in the same county (Inyo) is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley, at -282 feet. What a roller coaster ride that would make from mountain top to valley bottom! In the Klamath Mountains of northern California are forests so dense and remote, they are a haven for illegal marijuana growers.

Along the California coast are spectacular differences in vegetation and climate — more than 3000 miles of wind, sand and jagged rocks where earth, air and water come together. Environments range from the rain-laden northern coast, home of the giant Redwoods and Sequoias, to the dry scrub coastal areas around San Diego.