California is divided into 58 counties and contains 482 municipalities.[4] One, San Francisco, is a consolidated city-county. California law makes no distinction between "city" and "town", and municipalities may use either term in their official names.[5] They can be organized as either a charter municipality, governed by its own charter, or a general-law municipality (or "code city"), governed by state statute.[6]
The first municipality to incorporate was Sacramento on February 27, 1850, while the most recent was Jurupa Valley on July 1, 2011. Eight cities were incorporated before the state's September 9, 1850, admission to the Union.[7] The largest municipality by population and land area is Los Angeles with 3,792,621 residents and 468.67 square miles (1,213.8 km2). Amador City is the smallest municipality by population with 200 people and the smallest by land area at 0.31 square miles (0.80 km2).[8]
^"Explore Census Data". United States Census Bureau. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
^ ab"Places". 2020 U.S. Gazetteer Files. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 20, 2021.
^ ab"City of Eastvale"(PDF). Riverside County Transportation and Land Management Agency. Archived from the original(PDF) on May 14, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
^ ab"City of Jurupa Valley"(PDF). Riverside County Transportation and Land Management Agency. Archived from the original(PDF) on May 14, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
^Long, Percy V. (1911). "Consolidated City and County Government of San Francisco". Proceedings of the American Political Science Association. 8 (Eighth Annual Meeting): 109–121. doi:10.2307/3038399. JSTOR3038399.