Cañada Gobernadora is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

San Juan Creek San Juan Creek, also called the San Juan River, is a long stream in Orange and Riverside Counties, draining a watershed of .7.5 Minute Quadrangle Map, U.S. Geological Survey, San Juan Capistrano, 1968, photorevised 1981 Its mainstem begins in ...

, about long, in southern

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The creek begins in the foothills of the

Santa Ana Mountains The Santa Ana Mountains are a short peninsular mountain range along the coast of Southern California in the United States. They extend for approximately southeast of the Los Angeles Basin largely along the border between Orange and Riverside co ...

(), at an elevation of , and flows south through residential, agricultural and finally undeveloped land, to its confluence with San Juan Creek a few miles upstream of the city of

San Juan Capistrano San Juan Capistrano (Spanish for "St. John of Capistrano") is a city in Orange County, California, located along the Orange Coast. The population was 34,593 at the 2010 census. San Juan Capistrano was founded by the Spanish in 1776, when St. ...

(). The upper half of the stream is largely channelized and flows through golf courses, while the lower half is a

wash WASH (or Watsan, WaSH) is an acronym that stands for "water, sanitation and hygiene". It is used widely by non-governmental organizations and aid agencies in developing countries. The purposes of providing access to WASH services include achievin ...

-like channel that can be up to wide. The stream receives some

urban runoff Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater, landscape irrigation, and car washing created by urbanization. Impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots and sidewalks) are constructed during land development. During rain , storms and other precipit ...

from the residential communities higher in its watershed. The watershed includes several geologic formations, including the

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

Sespe Formation The Sespe Formation is a widespread fossiliferous sedimentary geologic unit in southern and south central California in the United States. It is of nonmarine origin, consisting predominantly of sandstones and conglomerates laid down in a riverine ...

and Santiago Formation, and

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

sedimentary and

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

deposits embedded in its narrow

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

. Cañada Gobernadora forms an unofficial dividing line for the lower portion of the San Juan watershed; most urban development is confined to west of the creek's valley, while agricultural and undeveloped lands lie to the east of the creek. Historically, the Cañada Gobernadora valley was inhabited by the

Acjachemen The Acjachemen (, alternate spelling: Acagchemem) are an Indigenous people of California. They historically lived south of what is known as Aliso Creek and north of the Las Pulgas Canyon in what are now the southern areas of Orange County and t ...

Native Americans who had two villages on the creek, Huumai, in the upper areas of the creek, and

Piwiva Piwiva was a Acjachemen village located at the meeting place of the San Juan Creek and Cañada Gobernadora tributary in what is now Rancho Mission Viejo, California. The name for the village was closely related to the Payómkawichum word for wild ...

, which was at the confluence with San Juan Creek. This latter village became a proposed site for

Mission San Juan Capistrano Mission San Juan Capistrano ( es, Misión San Juan Capistrano) is a Spanish mission in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County, California. Founded November 1, 1776 in colonial ''Las Californias'' by Spanish Catholic missionaries of the Franciscan O ...

before it was built in the city of the same name. The name of the creek means "Canyon of the Governor's Wife" in Spanish. A less commonly used name refers to greasewood, which was once abundant in the Cañada Gobernadora watershed. The upper watershed of the creek is now mostly occupied by suburban residential communities, and the middle and lower portions are given primarily to agriculture.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canada Gobernadora Orange County, California articles needing infoboxes Rivers of Orange County, California San Juan Creek Rivers of Southern California