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California Counties

The U.S. state of California is divided into fifty-eight counties.

On January 4, 1850, the California constitutional committee recommended the formation of 18 counties. They were Benicia, Butte, Fremont, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Monterey, Mount Diablo, Oro, Redding, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Sutter. On April 22, the counties of Branciforte, Calaveras, Coloma, Colusi, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Trinity, and Yuba were added. Benicia was renamed Solano, Coloma to El Dorado, Fremont to Yola, Mt. Diablo to Contra Costa, San Jose to Santa Clara, Oro to Tuolumne, and Redding to Shasta. One of the first state legislative acts regarding counties was to rename Branciforte County to Santa Cruz, Colusi to Colusa, and Yola to Yolo.

The last California county to have been established is Imperial County in 1907.

Yuba County, California

Yuba County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Marysville
Year Organized: 1850
Square Miles: 630

Court House:

215 5th Street
Marysville, CA 95901-5273

Etymology - Origin of County Name

It was named after the Yuba River by Captain John A. Sutter for the Indian village Yubu, Yupu or Juba near the confluence of the Yuba and Feather rivers. Vallejo stated that the river was named Uba by an exploring expedition in 1824 because of the quantities of wild grapes (uvas silvestres in Spanish) which they found growing on its banks

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Yuba County is located in the U.S. state of California's Central Valley, north of Sacramento, along the Feather River. The county seat is Marysville. Yuba County was one of the original counties of California, formed in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county's territory were given to Placer County in 1851, to Nevada County in 1851 and to Sierra County in 1852.

The first Legislature met in San Jose on the fifteenth of December, 1849, and February 8, 1850, passed an act segregating the Territory into twenty-seven counties, among which were Yuba and Sutter. General Vallejo, as Chairman of a Committee on Derivation and Meaning of the Names of the Counties, made a lengthy and elaborate report, in which he stated that Yuba was a misspelling <sic> of Uva , a name given to the stream by an exploring party in 1824, on account of the large quantities of wild grape vines found growing on the banks. General Bidwell disagrees with General Vallejo in regard to the derivation of the word Yuba. It is more probable that the name was of Indian origin, and that the similarity between it and the Spanish word was mere coincidence. Sutter county, of course, was named after Captain Sutter, who at that time owned a flourishing ranch and stock farm within its limits. The name of the Feather river may have been of French origin, Rivere de la Plume, which, translated into Spanish becomes Rio de los Plumas.

More at HISTORY OF YUBA COUNTY CALIFORNIA by Thompson & West, 1879

A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California - Chicago, Lewis Publ. Co., 1891, pages 282-287

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 644 square miles (1,667 km²), of which, 631 square miles (1,633 km²) of it is land and 13 square miles (34 km²) of it (2.03%) is water. The county lies along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, the steep slopes making it prime territory for the placements of hydroelectric power plants.

A portion of the county, where Marysville (the county seat) and most of the population lives, is west of the mountains on the valley floor. There is a great deal of agriculture business in this part of the county, especially fruit orchards, rice fields, and cattle grazing.

Neighboring Counties:

Northeast: Plumas County; Sierra County
East: Nevada County
Southeast: Placer County
Southwest: Sutter County
Northwest: Butte County

Cities and Towns:

- Marysville (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Wheatland	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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