Topic summary
State of California
Extracted from the Wikipedia article California.
Etymology
The Spaniards gave the name Las Californias to the peninsula of Baja California (in modern-day Mexico). As Spanish explorers and settlers moved north and inland, the region known as "California", or "Las Californias", grew in both area and population. Eventually it included lands north of the peninsula, Alta California, part of which became the present-day U.S. state of California.