1.
Del Norte County, California
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Del Norte County is a county at the far northwest corner of the U. S. state of California, along the Pacific Ocean adjacent to the Oregon border. As of the 2010 census, the population was 28,610, the county seat and only incorporated city is Crescent City. Del Norte was pioneered and settled by Azorean Portuguese explorers and dairy farmers, residents pronounce the county name as Del Nort, not Del Nor-tay as would be expected in Spanish. Del Norte County comprises the Crescent City, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area, the rural county is notable for forests containing giant Coast Redwoods, with some attaining heights over 350 feet. Del Norte is also known among Bigfoot enthusiasts as the location of the famous Patterson–Gimlin film, the area that is now known as Del Norte was and still is inhabited by the Yurok and Tolowa Nations of indigenous peoples. The first European American to explore this land was pioneer Jedediah Smith in the mid-19th century and he was the first European American to reach the area overland on foot in a time before the European Americans knew anything about such a distant territory. For him it was literally Lands End — where the American continent ended at the Pacific Ocean, in 1855 Congress authorized the building of a lighthouse at the battery point which is still functioning as a historical landmark. Del Norte County was established in 1857, from part of the territory of Klamath County following the great California Gold Rush, Klamath County itself ceased to exist in 1874. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 1,230 square miles. The mountainous terrain associated with the Coastal Range and the Klamath Mountains dominates Del Norte Countys geography, elevation ranges from sea level to over 6,400 feet. Although much of the county is made up of steep terrain, there are patches of flat terrain along the coast. There are 37 miles of coastline in the county, forming a zone that covers approximately 51,000 acres. A broad coastal plain can be found in the northwest portion of the county with the edge of the Klamath Mountains as its easterly boundary. Rising abruptly from the plain, the Klamath Mountains extend north into Oregon and are situated between the Cascade Range to the east and the Coast Range to the north. Pelican State Beach Smith River National Recreation Area Klamath - one of the longest in California, Smith - a crown jewel of the National Wild and Scenic River program. Vegetative plant associations feature several forest types including mixed oak forest, the California endemic Blue oak, Quercus douglasii is at the northernmost part of it its range in Del Norte County. The Black Oak and Douglas-fir are also found in Del Norte County, the 2010 United States Census reported that Del Norte County had a population of 28,610. The racial makeup of Del Norte County was 21,098 White,993 African American,2,244 Native American,965 Asian,32 Pacific Islander,1,980 from other races, Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5,093 persons
2.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, 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. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, 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 also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
ZIP Code
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ZIP Codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, was chosen to suggest that the travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly. The basic format consists of five numerical digits, an extended ZIP+4 code, introduced in 1983, includes the five digits of the ZIP Code, a hyphen, and four additional digits that determine a more specific location within a given ZIP Code. The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the U. S. Postal Service, USPS style for ZIP is all caps and the c in code is also capitalized, although style sheets for some publications use sentence case or lowercase. The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers, the United States Post Office Department implemented postal zones for numerous large cities in 1943. For example, Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, by the early 1960s a more organized system was needed, and on July 1,1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide. Three months later, on October 1,1963, the U. S, an earlier list in June had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with one exception, according to the historian of the U. S. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code, he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office gives credit to Moon only for the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility or sec center, an SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes, the mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, Mail picked up at post offices is sent to their own SCF in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. The United States Post Office used a character, which it called Mr. ZIP. He was often depicted with a such as USE ZIP CODE in the selvage of panes of stamps or on labels contained in, or the covers of. In 1983, the U. S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it called ZIP+4, often called plus-four codes, add-on codes, or add ons. But initial attempts to promote use of the new format met with public resistance. For Post Office Boxes, the rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. However, there is no rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster,9999 for general delivery, for a unique ZIP Code, the add-on code is typically 0001
5.
Unincorporated area
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Occasionally, municipalities dissolve or disincorporate, which may happen if they become fiscally insolvent, and services become the responsibility of a higher administration. In some countries, such as in Brazil, Japan, France or the United Kingdom, unlike many other countries, Australia has only one level of local government immediately beneath state and territorial governments. A local government area often contains several towns and even entire cities, thus, aside from very sparsely populated areas and a few other special cases, almost all of Australia is part of an LGA. Unincorporated areas are often in locations, cover vast areas or have very small populations. Postal addresses in unincorporated areas, as in parts of Australia. Thus, there is any ambiguity regarding addresses in unincorporated areas. The Australian Capital Territory has no municipalities and is in some sense an unincorporated area, the territorial government is directly responsible for matters normally carried out by local government. The far west and north of New South Wales constitutes the Unincorporated Far West Region, a civil servant in the state capital manages such matters as are necessary. The second unincorporated area of state is Lord Howe Island. In the Northern Territory,1. 45% of the area and 4. In South Australia, 60% of the area is unincorporated and communities located within can receive services provided by a state agency. Firstly, the remote area that is unincorporated is the Abrolhos Islands. Secondly, the unincorporated areas are A-class reserves either in, or close to. In Canada, depending on the province, a settlement is one that does not have a municipal council that governs solely over the settlement. It is usually, but not always, part of a municipal government. This can range from hamlets to large urbanized areas that are similar in size to towns. In British Columbia, unincorporated settlements lie outside municipal boundaries entirely, Unincorporated settlements with a population of between 100 and 1,000 residents may have the status of designated place in Canadian census data. In some provinces, large tracts of undeveloped wilderness or rural country are unorganized areas that fall directly under the provincial jurisdiction
6.
U.S. Route 101
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U. S. Route 101, or U. S. Highway 101 is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as El Camino Real where its route along the southern and central California coast approximates the old trail which linked the Spanish missions, pueblos and it merges at some points with California State Route 1. US101 is a major parallel freeway or highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is an alternative to the Interstate for most of its length, in 1964, California truncated US 101s southern terminus in Los Angeles, as I-5 replaced it. The old road is known as County Route S21 or Historic Route 101 in northern San Diego County, the southern terminus of US101 is in Los Angeles at the East Los Angeles Interchange, the worlds busiest freeway interchange. However, the principal routes were assigned numbers ending in 1. Thus, US101 is treated as a primary, two-digit route with a first digit of 10, rather than a spur of US1, thus US101, not US99, is the westernmost north-south route in the U. S. Highway System. US101 is called the Oregon Coast Highway in Oregon, and it is also called The 101 by Southern Californians or simply 101 by residents of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. From north of San Francisco and continuing almost to Oregon it is signed as the Redwood Highway though not often spoken of as such outside organizations responsible for tourism marketing. Urban portions of the route in Southern California are named the Santa Ana Freeway, Hollywood Freeway, in 2003, the portion of US101 in Ventura County was named Screaming Eagles Highway in honor of the US Army 101st Airborne Division. Urban portions of the route in the Bay Area are called the James Lick Freeway, Bayshore Freeway, a portion of the route between Cochrane Road in Morgan Hill and SR85 in San Jose is named the Sig Sanchez Freeway. The section of highway between SR-85 in Mountain View and Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto is officially known as the Fredrick E. Terman Highway, Street routings in San Francisco are more commonly referred to by their street names rather than the route number. Portions of the route between Southern California and the Bay Area are named El Camino Real or El Camino Real Freeway, but such names are used colloquially. In Northern California the section of US101 between Sonoma and Marin counties is referred to as the Novato Narrows because of the reduction from four lanes to two. The route is the Santa Ana Freeway from East Los Angeles to Downtown Los Angeles and it becomes the Hollywood Freeway north of Downtown Los Angeles through the Cahuenga Pass, before turning west and becoming the Ventura Freeway. It is one of two major routes connecting the South Bay and Silicon Valley with San Francisco and the North Bay. It serves as an urban alternative to the rural I-280, as US101 runs through Peninsula cities closer to the Bay and I-280 runs closer to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Through northern San Francisco, US101 remains routed on congested city streets due to freeway revolts and it then departs the immediate coast and continues through wine country and Redwood forests until it re-emerges coast-side at Eureka. In areas where US101 turns inland, SR1 branches off to serve the coastal communities, unlike Washington, California does not sign the long east–west section of US101 between Gaviota and its junction with SR134 and SR170 in North Hollywood as west and east
7.
Klamath River
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The Klamath River flows 263 miles through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second largest river in California after the Sacramento River and it drains an extensive watershed of almost 16,000 square miles that stretches from the arid country of south-central Oregon to the temperate rainforest of the Pacific coast. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath begins in the desert and flows toward the mountains – carving its way through the rugged Cascade Range. The watershed is known for this peculiar geography, and the Klamath has been called a river upside down by National Geographic magazine, the Klamath is the most important North American river south of the Columbia River for anadromous fish migration. Its salmon, steelhead and rainbow trout have adapted to high water temperatures. The numerous fish were a source of food for Native Americans. Within several decades of settlement, native peoples were forced into reservations. During the latter days of the California Gold Rush, increasing numbers of miners working the Klamath River and its tributaries. Conflict and introduced diseases left indigenous tribes with only 10% of their original population, steamboats operated briefly on the large lakes of the upper basin, contributing to the growth of towns such as Klamath Falls, Oregon, before they were replaced by railroads in the late 19th century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the basin became a productive agricultural region. In the 1960s, the Klamath River was targeted by much larger, one of these projects, the Klamath Diversion, would have reversed the entire flow of the Klamath River to supply farms and urban areas in central and southern California. Today, the Klamath is a recreational river as well as an important source of water for agriculture. It includes many of the longest free-flowing stretches of river in California, however, dams and diversions in the upper basin have often caused water quality issues in the lower half of the river. Environmental groups and native tribes have proposed changes to water use in the Klamath Basin. The proposal has been endorsed by the U. S. Department of the Interior but has not been authorized by the United States Congress. Upper Klamath Lake, filling a valley at the foot of the eastern slope of the southern High Cascades, is the source of the Klamath River. Its headstreams, however, begin over 100 miles away—as far as Crater Lake National Park, the Klamath River issues from Klamath Lake at Klamath Falls as a short 1-mile stream known as the Link River, which flows into 18-mile long Lake Ewauna, formed by Keno Dam. Below the dam the river flows west, passing the mostly dry Lower Klamath Lake bed, the Klamath River then enters California, where it passes through three more hydroelectric plants and turns south near the town of Hornbrook towards Mount Shasta
8.
Marriage
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The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity, when defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, whom they marry may be influenced by socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice and individual desire. In some areas of the world, arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, conversely, such practices may be outlawed and penalized in parts of the world out of concerns for womens rights and because of international law. These trends coincide with the human rights movement. Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, an authority, a tribal group. It is often viewed as a contract, Marriages can be performed in a secular civil ceremony or in a religious setting via a wedding ceremony. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, and any offspring they may produce, some cultures allow the dissolution of marriage through divorce or annulment. In some areas, child marriages and polygamy may occur in spite of laws against the practice. For example, the number of marriages in Europe decreased by 30% from 1975 to 2005 and these changes have occurred primarily in Western countries. The word marriage derives from Middle English mariage, which first appears in 1250–1300 CE and this in turn is derived from Old French, marier, and ultimately Latin, marītāre, meaning to provide with a husband or wife and marītāri meaning to get married. The adjective marīt-us -a, -um meaning matrimonial or nuptial could also be used in the form as a noun for husband. Anthropologists have proposed several competing definitions of marriage in an attempt to encompass the wide variety of marital practices observed across cultures, even within Western culture, definitions of marriage have careened from one extreme to another and everywhere in between. The anthropological handbook Notes and Queries defined marriage as a union between a man and a such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners. In recognition of a practice by the Nuer people of Sudan allowing women to act as a husband in certain circumstances, Kathleen Gough suggested modifying this to a woman, none of these men had legal rights to the womans child. Economic anthropologist Duran Bell has criticized the definition on the basis that some societies do not require marriage for legitimacy. He argued that a definition of marriage is circular in societies where illegitimacy has no other legal or social implications for a child other than the mother being unmarried. In 1955 article in Man, Leach argued that no one definition of marriage applied to all cultures and he offered a list of ten rights associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children, with specific rights differing across cultures
9.
California State Legislature
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The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U. S. state of California. It is a body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house. New legislators convene each new session, to organize, in the Assembly and Senate Chambers, respectively. Aside from the recess, the legislature is in session year-round, the Democratic Party currently holds supermajorities in both chambers of the California Legislature. The state senate currently consists of 27 Democrats and 13 Republicans, except for the period from 1995 to 1996, the Assembly has been in Democratic hands since the 1970 election. The Senate has been in Democratic hands continuously since 1970, the first Californian State House was originally a hotel in San Jose owned by businessman Pierre Don Pedro Sainsevain and his associates. The State Legislature currently meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento, members of the Assembly are elected from 80 districts and serve two-year terms. Members of the Senate are elected from forty districts and serve four-year terms, twenty Senate seats are up for election at each two-year election cycle. Term limits were established in 1990 following the passage of Proposition 140. In June 2012, voters approved Proposition 28 which allows legislators to serve a maximum of 12 years without regard to whether the years are served in the State Assembly or the State Senate. The proceedings of the California State Legislature are briefly summarized in regularly published journals, which show votes, reports produced by California executive agencies, as well as the Legislature, were published in the Appendices to the Journals from 1849 to 1970. Since the 1990s, the legislature has provided a video feed for its sessions. Due to the expense and the obvious political downside, California did not keep records of actual speeches made by members of the Assembly. As a result, reconstructing legislative intent outside of an acts preamble is extremely difficult in California for legislation passed before the 1990s. Since 1993, the Legislature has hosted a web/ftp site in one form or another, the most sought-after legislative committee appointments are to banking, agriculture and insurance. A bill is a proposal to change, repeal, or add to existing state law, an Assembly Bill is one introduced in the Assembly, a Senate Bill, in the Senate. Bills are designated by number, in the order of introduction in each house, for example, AB16 refers to the 16th bill introduced in the Assembly. The numbering starts afresh each session, there may be one or more extraordinary sessions
10.
Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
United States
California
