1. The Grizzly Bear State:
California was formerly known as the Grizzly Bear State. When California witnessed a boom, the bear population was wiped out, and it became “the Golden State.”
2. America’s Richest Farming Region:
California tops the list in agricultural and dairy products in the United States. It has the world’s largest almond processing plant, refining 12 million pounds of the nutty treats a day.
3. The Tallest, Largest, And Oldest Tree In The World:
California is home to the world’s largest tree, General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, also the tallest tree, a coastal redwood whose identity is not disclosed, and guess what, the oldest one too, Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree from California’s the White Mountains.
4. Home To Death Valley:
Death Valley is known as the hottest and driest place in America. It is quite common for the summer temperatures to go above 200 °F.
5. Water-Water Everywhere; No Water To Drink:
It’s true. Water is so scarce that the farmers make more money selling their water supply, than by planting food. Rice farmers of northern California sell their water supplies to thirsty Southern Californians at high rates.
6. Some suggest that the word California may come from the early Spanish explorers who entered California via the hot southern regions and referred to California as being “hot as an oven” (Cali > hot, fornia > oven).
7. The Bordering States of California are Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.
8. California’s largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco.
9. Other natural wonders in California include Lassen Peak, one of two active volcanoes in the U.S.
10. Economically, the most important plant in the family is the opium poppy ( P. somniferum ), now widely cultivated from Europe to East Asia.
11. The top tourist spots of California are Disneyland, Anaheim; Universal Studios, Hollywood; Sea World, San Diego; Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park; Six Flags Magic Mountain, Valencia; Santa Cruz Beach, Boardwalk, Santa Cruz, etc.
12. California’s diverse geography, geology, soils, and climate have generated a tremendous diversity of plant and animal life.
13. California is the USA’s most populous state with almost 40,000,000 residents, more than Canada as of 2008. One of eight United States residents lives here.
14. California contains the lowest and the highest points in the continental U. S. You can travel from 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley to 14,494-foot Mt. Whitney in less than a day.
15. Invented in California: fortune cookies, Apple computers, theme parks (Disneyland), blue jeans and the Barbie doll.