Alta ( Spanish for "Upper") is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Placer County,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, about northeast of Auburn. The village is located off Interstate 80 and along the historical

First transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

. The ZIP code is 95701 and the area code 530. One of the few buildings other than private residences is the Alta-Dutch Flat Grammar School serving kindergarten through eighth grade students. The high school that serves Alta is named Colfax High School. Colfax High School is 11 miles southwest in the incorporated town of Colfax. The population of Alta was 615 at the 2020 census. A historical California place once named ''Alta'' was located in San Diego County near the present-day La Mesa– El Cajon boundary. This historical place was along the

San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway The San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway is a short-line American railroad founded in 1932 as the successor to the San Diego and Arizona Railway (SD&A), which was founded in 1906 by entrepreneur John D. Spreckels. Dubbed "The Impossible Railr ...

, now the San Diego Trolley Orange Line, at its Murray Drive undercrossing in La Mesa. The community was named after the Spanish word meaning "upper" or "high".

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the CDP covers an area of 2.4 square miles (6.2 km²), 99.72% of it land, and 0.28% of it water.

Climate

Blue Canyon–Nyack Airport has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

(Csb) according to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system. Summers are generally warm with cool nights, while winters are moderately cold and extremely snowy, despite no month having an average low temperature below freezing.

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Alta had a population of 615. The population density was . The racial makeup of Alta was 86.8%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.2%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 2.8% Native American, 0.8% Asian, 0.0%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 1.1% from other races, and 8.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.3% of the population. The whole population lived in households. There were 248 households, out of which 22.2% included children under the age of 18, 54.8% were married-couple households, 3.6% were cohabiting couple households, 9.7% had a female householder with no partner present, and 31.9% had a male householder with no partner present. 27.0% of households were one person, and 14.9% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.48. There were 164 families (66.1% of all households). The age distribution was 19.2% under the age of 18, 4.9% aged 18 to 24, 22.0% aged 25 to 44, 28.8% aged 45 to 64, and 25.2% who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 50.2years. For every 100 females, there were 108.5 males. There were 308 housing units at an average density of , of which 248 (80.5%) were occupied. Of these, 77.0% were owner-occupied, and 23.0% were occupied by renters.

References

External links

Sierra Nevada Virtual Museum: Alta
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in California Census-designated places in Placer County, California Census-designated places in California