page_title: Central Valley (California)
section_title: Environment
hierarchical_section_title: Central Valley (California) / Environment
context_page_description: The Central Valley is a flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is 40 to 60 miles wide and stretches approximately 450 miles from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. It covers approximately 18,000 square miles, about 11% of California's total land area. The valley is bounded by the Coast Ranges to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east.
  It is California's most productive agricultural region and one of the most productive in the world, providing more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. More than 7 million acres of the valley are irrigated via an extensive system of reservoirs and canals. The valley also has many major cities, including the state capital Sacramento; as well as Chico, Redding, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield.
  The Central Valley watershed comprises 60,000 square miles, or over a third of California.
context_section_description: The "Central Valley grassland" is the Nearctic temperate and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrub lands ecoregion that was once a diverse grassland containing areas of desert grassland (at the southern end), prairie, savanna, riverside woodland, marsh, several types of seasonal vernal pools, and large lakes such as now-dry Tulare Lake (which was the largest freshwater lake in the United States west of the Mississippi), Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake. However, much of the Central Valley environment has been removed or altered by human activity including the introduction of exotic plants, especially grasses. The oak woodlands and chaparral that fringe the valley have been categorized as the California interior chaparral and woodlands ecoregion.
  The wetlands have been the target of rescue operations to restore areas nearly destroyed by agriculture.
caption: Central Valley seen from space.
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