Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party; the Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism, while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist anti-business wings.
The New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South. After the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most Southern whites and many Northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level; the once-powerful labor union element became less supportive after the 1970s. White Evangelicals and Southerners became Republican at the state and local level since the 1990s. People living in metropolitan areas, women and gender minorities, college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and African Americans, tend to support the Democratic Party much more than they support the rival Republican Party; the Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state.
It seeks to provide government regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, affordable college tuitions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection and environmental protection form the core of the party's economic policy. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States; the first was President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was President Barack Obama, the 44th president and held office from 2009 to 2017. Following the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives, "trifectas" in 14 states, the mayoralty of numerous major American cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D. C. Twenty-three state governors were Democrats, the Party was the minority party in the Senate and in most state legislatures; as of March 2019, four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Democratic Party officials trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues, they have been more liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times; the Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. The party favored republicanism; the Democratic-Republican Party came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the Federalists disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans.
The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions, they split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828: Jacksonians believed the people's will had prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president; the Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics. Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party; the Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Dem
Wildcat Canyon Regional Park
Wildcat Canyon Regional Park is a 2,429-acre East Bay Regional Parks District park located within the city limits of Richmond in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. It includes a portion of Wildcat Canyon as well as a portion of the adjoining San Pablo Ridge, is directly connected to the more used Tilden Regional Park; the area was inhabited by Native Americans until 1772 when a group of "Catalan volunteers" led by Pedro Fagas and Fray Juan Crespi came across the settlement while searching for trade routes north beyond the Carquinez Strait. The Spanish settled the general area and by 1840 had parceled the land for missions and cattle raising coming into conflict with the historical communal practices of the Native Americans. Juan Jose and Victor Castro were given rights to all vacant land in the area, they kept some valuable lands and gave much of the land over to municipal authorities for water usage. In 1935, the East Bay Regional Parks District acquired the land that formed Tilden Park to the South and continued to acquire land to the north of Tilden until in 1976 it had sufficient land to form Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.
EBRPD announced on February 17, 2014 that it had acquired 362 acres of woodland on the east side of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, which will be added to the existing park. The addition will provide easier access for visitors from El Richmond; the property had been owned by a developer who had intended to build 36 houses on it, before the collapse of real estate prices around 2009. Wildcat has an abundance of fauna. There are Coast Live Oak, California Bay Laurel, Big leaf maple, alder, willow and eucalyptus forests. There are humid chaparrals made up of coyote brush, poison oak, snowberry, bracken fern, blackberry brambles. There are some native grasses, but non-native species like rye and oat dominate, however many kinds of native flowers are present. With regards to animal life there are coyotes, raccoons, opossums, California ground squirrels thought to be gophers in addition to voles present. Reptilian life includes gopher snakes, king snakes, western racers, garter snakes, rubber boas, ringneck snakes.
In the skies red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, sharp shinned hawks, cooper's hawks and turkey vultures fly and great horned owls and many songbirds. Wildcat Creek Trail - Runs along Wildcat Creek from the Alvarado Park staging area in Richmond into Tilden Park's Nature Area; the Wildcat Park section measures 3.5 miles to the park border and continues for 1 mile to the Tilden Nature Area parking lot. The trail does not involve major elevation changes; the trail's midpoint can be accessed via Rifle Range Road Trail accessed via Rifle Range Road in El Cerrito, California. Nimitz Way - Starting at Tilden Park's Inspiration Point, Nimitz Way is a paved trail that connects to Wildcat Canyon Park after 1.5 miles. The Wildcat section connects to San Pablo Ridge Trail. Nimitz Way is a popular easy trail with views of the San Francisco Bay to the west and EBMUD's San Pablo & Briones Reservoirs and Mt. Diablo. Belgum Trail - Named for Dr. Belgum who ran a sanitarium, located close to this trail, it is accessed from Wildcat Creek Trail about 0.5 miles from the Alvarado Park staging area and climbs over a short 0.85 miles to Wildcat Canyon's meadows.
The trail provides excellent views of San Francisco Bay. San Pablo Ridge Trail - Accessed from Belgum Trail or Clark-Boas Trail, which runs from the Clark Road park entrance in Richmond, the San Pable Ridge Trail is a short 1.43 miles but climbs over three peaks. The trail connects at its Southern terminus with Nimitz Way. Alavarado Park, a National Historic Place is the northernmost portion of Wildcat Canyon; the two-mile section in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park was a Nike missile base, decommissioned in the 1970s. Today there are few signs of the missile silos and military housing that used to populate these hills. Wildcat Canyon Regional Park hosts cattle who graze the hills of the park under a grazing program managed by the East Bay Regional Parks District; the park can be accessed via the following entry points: The main entrance and park office is the Alvarado Park area on Park Avenue in Richmond reached from McBryde Avenue. The Clark Road entrance in the northernmost area of the park is accessed off of San Pablo Dam Road.
Rifle Range Road in El Cerrito Leisure Lane off of San Pablo Dam Road Wildcat Canyon Regional Park at the East Bay Regional Parks District website Wildcat Regional Park Trail Map Wildcat Canyon Regional Park Map - Text Side
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most identify, indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic or Latino origin. The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and, "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country." OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference." The race categories include both national-origin groups. Race and ethnicity are considered separate and distinct identities, with Hispanic or Latino origin asked as a separate question. Thus, in addition to their race or races, all respondents are categorized by membership in one of two ethnic categories, which are "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".
However, the practice of separating "race" and "ethnicity" as different categories has been criticized both by the American Anthropological Association and members of US Commission on Civil Rights. In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government; the development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way and having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race.
The OMB states, "many federal programs are put into effect based on the race data obtained from the decennial census. Race data are critical for the basic research behind many policy decisions. States require these data to meet legislative redistricting requirements; the data are needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act by local jurisdictions". "Data on ethnic groups are important for putting into effect a number of federal statutes. Data on Ethnic Groups are needed by local governments to run programs and meet legislative requirements." The 1790 United States Census was the first census in the history of the United States. The population of the United States was recorded as 3,929,214 as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws."The law required that every household be visited, that completed census schedules be posted in'two of the most public places within, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...' and that'the aggregate amount of each description of persons' for every district be transmitted to the president."
This law along with U. S. marshals were responsible for governing the census. One third of the original census data has been lost or destroyed since documentation; the data was lost in 1790–1830 time period and included data from: Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia. Census data included the name of the head of the family and categorized inhabitants as follows: free white males at least 16 years of age, free white males under 16 years of age, free white females, all other free persons, slaves. Thomas Jefferson the Secretary of State, directed marshals to collect data from all thirteen states, from the Southwest Territory; the census was not conducted in Vermont until 1791, after that state's admission to the Union as the 14th state on March 4 of that year. There was some doubt surrounding the numbers, President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson maintained the population was undercounted; the potential reasons Washington and Jefferson may have thought this could be refusal to participate, poor public transportation and roads, spread out population, restraints of current technology.
No microdata from the 1790 population census is available, but aggregate data for small areas and their compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System. In 1800 and 1810, the age question regarding free white males was more detailed; the 1820
Richmond Heights, Richmond, California
Richmond Heights East Richmond and known as Mira Vista is a district of eastern Richmond, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. The neighborhood is bordered by the North & East neighborhood to the west, the city of San Pablo, California to the north, the unincorporated community of East Richmond Heights to the east, the city of El Cerrito to the south; the area is known as Mira Vista, an older name for the eastern side of the city and unincorporated areas in the sector, survived by the Mira Vista Post Office across the street and border in North & East. The neighborhood has four small community parks, Mira Vista Park on Mount St, Tiller Park has a baseball field and tennis courts near Sierra and Ventura, 0.4 acre Humboldt Park and 0.3 acre Kern Playlot. Both have play structures and Humboldt features basketball courts. A brownfield site adjacent to Humboldt Park is being developed by Urban Tilth as a community farm producing locally grown produce; the Mira Vista Post Office provides the community of Richmond Heights with mail services.
The community maintains a neighborhood council, that delegates the community's issues with the city council, known as the Richmond Heights Neighborhood Council. The council meets at 6028 Ralston Avenue at the Serra Adult School Campus; the neighborhood is in Richmond Police Department district 3. The entire neighborhood is served by one officer at a time as police beat 7; the area is home to Mira Vista Elementary K-8 school, Riverside elementary school of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. The private Catholic Saint David School is located in the northern corner of the neighborhood and this includes Saint David Catholic Church and is of the Diocese of Oakland. Serra Adult School provides local education to adults from throughout the area and serves as the headquarters for the Richmond Heights Neighborhood Council. Interstate 80 has exits at MacBryde & Solano avenues; the main street corridor is San Pablo Avenue. MacBryde and Solano act as major arterials feeding Interstate 80 and Arlington Boulevard in East Richmond Heights.
Meanwhile and Humboldt are frontage roads to the highway and Yuba and others act as a feeder streets. The I-80/Hercules bikeway is marked as passing through the neighborhood from the El Cerrito Border along Humboldt Street to the norther border with the city of San Pablo; the trail connects the El Cerrito del Norte BART station and Ohlone trail to the south with the city of Hercules to the north. AC Transit runs frequent bus service through the community along the San Pablo corridor; this service includes one local, one rapid, one express commuter, two school service lines through the neighborhood. The service has been reduced as compared to the 1990s and 2000s included less frequent service and reduction from four local lines to one and five express buses to one. Route 72 provides local service to Contra Costa College and Hilltop Mall and points in Richmond and San Pablo to the north; the line travels south to El Cerrito del Norte BART station, a major regional transit hub and further south into El Cerrito, points in between and Oakland.
The 72R is a bus rapid transit line that has one rapid stop in Richmond Heights at San Pablo & Garvin that travels from Contra Costa College to Oakland. Line L/LC provides transbay commuter service to or from the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. School lines 683, 684 connect the community's students with LeVonya DeJean, Portola Middle School and El Cerrito High School; the area is residential with detached single family homes with some two-story apartment buildings in between. The majority of the neighborhood is zoned multifamily residential with areas along Humboldt Street zoned neighborhood commercial and the San Pablo Avenue Corridor and western McBryde Corridor are marked for general commercial; some small areas are marked community & regional recreational or public and civic uses, such as schools and parks. There are many small businesses along San Pablo avenue, including a diverse mix of Indian, Vietnamese, Nicaraguan, Mexican and fast food restaurants, earning the area a reputation as a low-priced "gourmet ghetto", according to the East Bay Express.
There are 30 businesses in the district small to medium-sized retail shops, in addition to leasing offices for apartments, banking and auto dealers. The city has expanded its business façade improvement project to the area's San Pablo Avenue businesses with US$20,000 grants that need not be paid back if the business remains in place for 5 years. Richmond Heights Neighborhood Council
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is applied to living organisms, most of the time to humans, it is a key geographical term. In simple terms population density refers to the number of people living in an area per kilometer square. Population density is population divided by total land water volume, as appropriate. Low densities may lead to further reduced fertility; this is called the Allee effect after the scientist. Examples of the causes in low population densities include: Increased problems with locating sexual mates Increased inbreeding For humans, population density is the number of people per unit of area quoted per square kilometer or square mile; this may be calculated for a county, country, another territory or the entire world. The world's population is around 7,500,000,000 and Earth's total area is 510,000,000 square kilometers. Therefore, the worldwide human population density is around 7,500,000,000 ÷ 510,000,000 = 14.7 per km2. If only the Earth's land area of 150,000,000 km2 is taken into account human population density is 50 per km2.
This includes all continental and island land area, including Antarctica. If Antarctica is excluded population density rises to over 55 people per km2. However, over half of the Earth's land mass consists of areas inhospitable to human habitation, such as deserts and high mountains, population tends to cluster around seaports and fresh-water sources. Thus, this number by itself does not give any helpful measurement of human population density. Several of the most densely populated territories in the world are city-states and dependencies; these territories have a small area and a high urbanization level, with an economically specialized city population drawing on rural resources outside the area, illustrating the difference between high population density and overpopulation The potential to maintain the agricultural aspects of deserts is limited as there is not enough precipitation to support a sustainable land. The population in these areas are low. Therefore, cities in the Middle East, such as Dubai, have been increasing in population and infrastructure growth at a fast pace.
Cities with high population densities are, by some, considered to be overpopulated, though this will depend on factors like quality of housing and infrastructure and access to resources. Most of the most densely populated cities are in Southeast Asia, though Cairo and Lagos in Africa fall into this category. City population and area are, however dependent on the definition of "urban area" used: densities are invariably higher for the central city area than when suburban settlements and the intervening rural areas are included, as in the areas of agglomeration or metropolitan area, the latter sometimes including neighboring cities. For instance, Milwaukee has a greater population density when just the inner city is measured, the surrounding suburbs excluded. In comparison, based on a world population of seven billion, the world's inhabitants, as a loose crowd taking up ten square feet per person, would occupy a space a little larger than Delaware's land area; the Gaza Strip has a population density of 5,046 pop/km.
Although arithmetic density is the most common way of measuring population density, several other methods have been developed to provide a more accurate measure of population density over a specific area. Arithmetic density: The total number of people / area of land Physiological density: The total population / area of arable land Agricultural density: The total rural population / area of arable land Residential density: The number of people living in an urban area / area of residential land Urban density: The number of people inhabiting an urban area / total area of urban land Ecological optimum: The density of population that can be supported by the natural resources Demography Human geography Idealized population Optimum population Population genetics Population health Population momentum Population pyramid Rural transport problem Small population size Distance sampling List of population concern organizations List of countries by population density List of cities by population density List of city districts by population density List of English districts by population density List of European cities proper by population density List of United States cities by population density List of islands by population density List of U.
S. states by population density List of Australian suburbs by population density Selected Current and Historic City, Ward & Neighborhood Density Duncan Smith / UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. "World Population Density". Exploratory map shows data from the Global Human Settlement Layer produced by the European Commission JRC and the CIESIN Columbia University
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
Berkeley Hills
The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills", but with the establishment of Berkeley and the University of California, the current usage was applied by geographers and gazetteers; the Berkeley Hills are bounded by the major Hayward Fault along their western base, the minor Wildcat fault on their eastern side. The highest peaks are Grizzly Peak and Round Top, an extinct volcano, William Rust Summit 1,004 feet. Vollmer Peak, although thought to be part of the Berkeley Hills is located on the adjacent San Pablo Ridge near the point where it meets the Berkeley Hills at the head of Wildcat Canyon. Vollmer Peak was named in honor of the first police chief of the City of August Vollmer, it was known as "Bald Peak". Much of the west slope of the Berkeley Hills has residential neighborhoods of single family homes, except on the land of University of California, Berkeley.
Most streets are narrow and tend to follow the contours of the land, although three streets, Marin Avenue, Moeser Lane, Potrero Avenue, run directly toward the ridgeline. Other roads to the ridgeline wind their way up the canyons. Grizzly Peak and Skyline Boulevards follow the top of the ridge. Many neighborhoods in the south Berkeley hills are home to the more affluent residents of Berkeley and Oakland due to their relative remoteness and undeveloped forest charm; the east slope of the Berkeley Hills is preserved or developed wildland, much of it owned by the East Bay Regional Park District and the East Bay Municipal Utility District. From north to south, the parks are Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, Tilden Regional Park, Sibley Volcanic Regional Park, Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, Redwood Regional Park, Anthony Chabot Regional Park, Lake Chabot Regional Park, Cull Canyon Regional Recreation Area. Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve, Temescal Regional Park are lower on the western slopes while Las Trampas Regional Wilderness is lower on the eastern slope above Danville.
The Berkeley Hills are pierced by several tunnels. Two are aqueducts of EBMUD; the four bores of the Caldecott Tunnel carry State Highway 24 between Oakland and Contra Costa County. It is common to hear the term, "Oakland Hills" to refer to that section of the Berkeley Hills that runs along the east side of Oakland; as a proper name or recognized toponym, it is technically incorrect. When used on maps, the exact south end of the "Berkeley Hills" is unclear, but the maps of the USGS show them stretching well south into the northeastern portion of Oakland, it does not, in any case, correspond to any political boundaries, only to a geographic feature. The ridge extends south through Oakland and San Leandro to the drainage of San Leandro Creek called Castro Valley, geologically, continues southward above the line of the Hayward Fault. In the section above East Oakland to Castro Valley, the ridge appears on most maps as the San Leandro Hills; the northern extent of the proper name "Berkeley Hills" is less indefinite.
The eastern slopes of the Berkeley Hills lie outside of the city of Berkeley within Contra Costa County. Another common usage is East Bay Hills, it may refer to all of the ranges east of the Bay, from the Berkeley Hills to the Diablo Range and all the ranges between. The Berkeley Hills affect the local climate by their elevation; the oceanic marine layer, which develops during the summer, bringing fog and low clouds with it, is less than 2,000 feet deep and thus is blocked by the range. This produces a "fog shadow" effect to the east, warmer than areas west of the hills; the westerly wind that carries the marine layer through the Golden Gate splits its flow as it hits the Berkeley Hills producing a southerly wind from Berkeley northward and a northerly wind in the direction of Oakland. In winter during spells of tule fog inland, a reverse situation occurs, with the fog confined to areas east of the hills, although the inland fog pours in from the north, around the hills by way of the Carquinez Strait.
The Berkeley Hills affect rainfall. Cold storms deposit wet snow on the peaks. In spring and fall, sinking air from aloft combining with inland high pressure periodically sends hot and gusty winds across the ridges of the Berkeley Hills, posing a fire danger, which in the 20th century produced several wildfires, two of which caused major damage to Berkeley and Oakland.. The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission, Andrew C. Lawson, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 87, 2 vols. - Available online at this USGS webpage. The Berkeley Hills, a De
United States
California
