The Santa Clarita Valley (SCV) is part of the upper watershed of the
Santa Clara River in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...
. The valley was part of the
Rancho San Francisco Mexican
land grant
A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
. Located in
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...
, its main population center is the city of
Santa Clarita which includes the communities of
Canyon Country,
Newhall,
Saugus, and
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
. Adjacent unincorporated communities include
Castaic
Castaic () (Chumash: ''Kaštiq''; Spanish: ''Castéc'') is an unincorporated community in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 19,015. For statistical purposes the Census Bureau ...
,
Stevenson Ranch,
Val Verde, and
the unincorporated parts of Valencia.
Etymology
The Santa Clara River was named by Spanish explorers for
Clare of Assisi
Clare of Assisi (born Chiara Offreduccio and sometimes spelled Clara, Clair, Claire, Sinclair; 16 July 1194 – 11 August 1253) was an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies ...
. The valley later became known as "little Santa Clara" in deference to the Northern California mission and city of
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...
. In time, "little Santa Clara" became "Santa Clarita."
Geography
The Santa Clarita Valley is bordered by the
Lake Piru
Lake Piru () is a reservoir located in Los Padres National Forest and Topatopa Mountains of Ventura County, California, created by the construction in 1955 of the Santa Felicia Dam on Piru Creek, which is a tributary of the Santa Clara River. ...
area, including the community of
Val Verde,
Los Padres National Forest
Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast from Ventura to Mo ...
, and
Castaic Lake to the northwest,
Sierra Pelona Mountains and
Angeles National Forest
The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the U.S. Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabriel Mountai ...
to the north and northeast,
San Gabriel Mountains
The San Gabriel Mountains ( es, Sierra de San Gabriel) are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies betw ...
to the east and southeast, and
Santa Susana Mountains
The Santa Susana Mountains are a transverse range of mountains in Southern California, north of the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The range runs east-west, separating the San Fernando and Simi valleys on its south from the Santa C ...
to the south and southwest, and
Ventura County
Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...
and the
Santa Clara River Valley to the west. To the west-northwest lies the
Topatopa Mountains
The Topatopa Mountains are a mountain range in Ventura County, California, north of Ojai, Santa Paula, and Fillmore. They are part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California.
Etymology
A name for the mountains was first inscribed within ...
.
Santa Clarita Valley is connected to a wide array of other nearby valleys: the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
and
Los Angeles Basin
The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the ...
via
Newhall Pass to the south;
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and ...
via
CA 14 through
Soledad Pass
Soledad Pass, elevation , is a mountain pass in northern Los Angeles County, California.
It is located at the highest point along Soledad Canyon, which winds between the Sierra Pelona Mountains to the northwest and the San Gabriel Mountains ...
to the northeast; the
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...
via
I-5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...
through
Tejon Pass
The Tejon Pass , previously known as ''Portezuelo de Cortes'', ''Portezuela de Castac'', and Fort Tejon Pass is a mountain pass between the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains and northeastern San Emigdio Mountains, linking Southern Calif ...
to the northwest, and
Leona Valley via
San Francisquito and
Bouquet canyons.
Downstream lies the
Santa Clara River Valley, which was given the moniker Heritage Valley by the tourism bureau representing
Piru,
Fillmore, and
Santa Paula. Upstream is
Soledad Canyon which contains the communities of Vincent,
Acton, Ravenna, and
Agua Dulce.
Geology
The Santa Clarita Valley is underlain by
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million year ...
alluvial deposits and coarse-grained
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
age
conglomerates dominated by
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...
of marine and non-marine origin. The far eastern end of the valley features predominantly coarse-grained
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 ...
age formations of
sedimentary
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
origin. The southern end of
Bouquet Canyon features a large areas of artificial fill stretching from Newhall Ranch Road up to Copper Hill Drive.
The valley is bisected by the
San Gabriel Fault, which runs through the center of the valley along a NW-SE axis. The much smaller Holser Fault runs east-to-west between the south-eastern
Topatopa Mountains
The Topatopa Mountains are a mountain range in Ventura County, California, north of Ojai, Santa Paula, and Fillmore. They are part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California.
Etymology
A name for the mountains was first inscribed within ...
and the present day community of
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
. Neither fault line has been active since the early
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 togeth ...
era.
The valley is located in the northeastern extreme of the Ventura Basin Province, a petroleum-rich
sedimentary basin
Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subsiden ...
with a long history of oil and gas production.
Climate
The valley features a
Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
(
Köppen ''Csa''), approaching a
semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi ...
, with hot, dry summers and mild, moderately rainy winters with rare snowfall. Temperatures often exceed on hot summer afternoons but rarely dip below on cold winter nights. The valley lies within
plant hardiness
Hardiness of plants describes their ability to survive adverse growing conditions. It is usually limited to discussions of climatic adversity. Thus a plant's ability to tolerate cold, heat, drought, flooding, or wind are typically considered measu ...
zone 9b.
Late spring and early summer mornings are often
overcast due to the formation of a
marine layer
A marine layer is an air mass that develops over the surface of a large body of water, such as an ocean or large lake, in the presence of a temperature inversion. The inversion itself is usually initiated by the cooling effect of the water on ...
off the coast that moves inland overnight. These clouds typically retreat out of the valley by midday.
The valley is part of a
"wind-tunnel-like-corridor" that connects the high desert with the
Oxnard Plain
The Oxnard Plain is a large coastal plain in southwest Ventura County, California, United States surrounded by the mountains of the Transverse ranges. The cities of Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and much of Ventura as well as the unincorpo ...
on the coast. This funnels the
Santa Ana winds
The Santa Ana winds (sometimes devil winds) "Scholars who have looked into the name's origins generally agree that it derives from Santa Ana Canyon, the portal where the Santa Ana River -- as well as a congested Riverside (CA-91) Freeway -- leav ...
which spreads wildfires and has been called one of the "most dangerous wind and fire corridors in Southern California."
Wildfires
Characterized by dry hills covered in brush and
chaparral
Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranea ...
, Santa Clarita is susceptible to wildfires. Although wildfires are most common in summer and fall, they can occur throughout the year during drought conditions, such as in
December 2017. Wildfire risk is highest when
Santa Ana winds
The Santa Ana winds (sometimes devil winds) "Scholars who have looked into the name's origins generally agree that it derives from Santa Ana Canyon, the portal where the Santa Ana River -- as well as a congested Riverside (CA-91) Freeway -- leav ...
blow through the area from the Mojave Desert.
Notable wildfires in the Santa Clarita Valley include the
Buckweed Fire,
Sand Fire,
Rye Fire
The Rye Fire was a wildfire that burned in Santa Clarita, California, in the United States, and one of multiple wildfires that broke out across Southern California in December 2017. The fire threatened over 5,000 structures, including Six Fla ...
,
Tick Fire
The Tick Fire was a wildfire that burned in Los Angeles County, California. The fire broke out on October 24, 2019, and burned several thousand acres. The fire forced the mass evacuation of 40,000 people from the Santa Clarita Valley.
Impact
Th ...
, and
Maria Fire
The Maria Fire was a wildfire that burned the south of the community of Santa Paula in the area of Somis, California on the top of South Mountain in Ventura County. The fire ignited in the evening hours of Thursday, October 31, 2019 and consumed ...
.
Ecology
Santa Clarita lies on the boundary between the
WWF-designated
California coastal sage and chaparral
The California coastal sage and chaparral ( es, Salvia y chaparral costero de California) is a Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregion located in southwestern California (United States) and northwestern Baja California (Mexico). It ...
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
to the southwest, and
California montane chaparral and woodlands
The California montane chaparral and woodlands is an ecoregion defined by the World Wildlife Fund, spanning of mountains in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Coast Ranges of southern and central California. The ecoregion is part of ...
ecoregion to the northeast.
Resident species of note include
bobcat
The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the ...
,
coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological nich ...
,
red-tailed hawk
The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members wit ...
, and
desert cottontail.
Entertainment
The Santa Clarita Valley is about from the
Burbank Bob Hope Airport, and about from
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the ...
. It is home to the theme park
Six Flags Magic Mountain which includes the gated waterpark
Six Flags Hurricane Harbor
Hurricane Harbor is a chain of water parks that are part of the Six Flags theme park chain. Although the parks are not identical, common features include a variety of body slides, speed slides, tube slides, wave pools, lazy rivers, and shopping ...
. It offers a variety of family-oriented activity centers such as the Mountasia Family Fun Center, Santa Clarita Aquatics Center, Copper Horse Riding Ranch, and the Cube (formerly Ice Station Valencia), restaurants and shopping centers, golf courses, cinemas and theaters, luxurious day spas, outdoor recreation areas like
Castaic Lake,
Placerita Canyon
Placerita Canyon State Park is a California State Park located on the north slope of the western San Gabriel Mountains, in an unincorporated rural area of Los Angeles County, near the city of Santa Clarita. The park hosts a variety of historic a ...
, and
Santa Clarita Woodlands Park
Santa Clarita Woodlands Park is a 4,000 acre (1,619 hectare) open space preserve located in the northeastern foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains near Santa Clarita, California.
Geography
The park borders the city of Santa Clarita to the nort ...
, as well as acres of parkland, animal sanctuaries like the Gentle Barn and
Gibbon Conservation Center, over 70 miles of paseos and trails for hiking and biking, and more. The valley is also home to a number of historical sites, such as the oil drilling town
Mentryville
Mentryville was an oil drilling town in the Santa Susana Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, USA. It was started by Charles Alexander Mentry in the 1870s around the newly discovered oil reserves in that area. The first oil strike was ...
, Walk of Western Stars, and
William S. Hart Ranch and Museum
William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered as a foremost Western star of the silent era who "imbued all of his characters with honor and integ ...
. The Santa Clarita Valley has a rich Western heritage, and since 1994, it has hosted an annual
Cowboy Festival, which attracts more than 10,000 visitors each year.
Education
Elementary school students in Santa Clarita are served by the
Castaic
Castaic () (Chumash: ''Kaštiq''; Spanish: ''Castéc'') is an unincorporated community in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 19,015. For statistical purposes the Census Bureau ...
,
Newhall,
Saugus, and
Sulphur Springs school districts. Junior high and high schools are part of the
William S. Hart Union High School District
The William S. Hart Union High School District (commonly referred to simply as the Hart District) is a school district in the Santa Clarita Valley of Los Angeles County, California. It serves all of the valley's high school students (grades 9– ...
, except for Castaic Middle School which is in the Castaic Union School District.
The unincorporated mountain communities of
Acton and
Agua Dulce are served by the
Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District
Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District is a school district serving the rural unincorporated communities of Acton and Agua Dulce in northern Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbre ...
, which serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
There are three institutions of higher education in the valley:
College of the Canyons
College of the Canyons (COC) is a public community college in Santa Clarita, California. It comprises the Santa Clarita Community College District. The college is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and has campus loca ...
,
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...
, and
The Master's University.
See also
*
Placerita Canyon State Park
*
Disney—Golden Oak Ranch
*
Monogram Movie Ranch—Melody Ranch
Notes
References
External links
Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society website
{{Authority control
Valleys of Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County, California regions
Santa Clara River (California)
*
Valleys of California