page_title: El Camino Real (California)
section_title: Commemorative trail routing
hierarchical_section_title: El Camino Real (California) / Commemorative trail routing
caption_attribution_description: English: Belfry of Mission San Miguel Arcángel. San Miguel, California, USA
context_page_description: El Camino Real, sometimes associated with Calle Real, usually refers to the 600-mile road connecting the 21 Spanish missions in California, along with a number of sub-missions, four presidios, and three pueblos, stretching at its southern end from the San Diego area Mission San Diego de Alcalá, all of the way up to the trail's northern terminus at Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, just north of San Francisco Bay.
  In earlier Spanish colonial times, any road under the direct jurisdiction of the Spanish crown and its viceroys was considered to be a camino real. Examples of such roads ran between principal settlements throughout Spain and its colonies such as New Spain. Most caminos reales had names apart from the appended camino real. Once Mexico won its independence from Spain, no road in Mexico, including California, was a camino real. The name was rarely used after that and was only revived in the American period in connection with the boosterism associated with the Mission Revival movement of the early 20th century.
  The original route begins in Baja California Sur, Mexico, at the site of Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó, present day Loreto.
context_section_description: Today, several modern highways cover parts of the historic route, though large sections are on city streets (for instance, most of the stretch between San Jose and San Francisco). Its full modern route, as defined by the California State Legislature, is as follows:
  East Bay route
  Some older local roads that parallel these routes also have the name.  Many streets throughout California now bear the name of this famous road, often with little factual relation to the original; but Mission Street in San Francisco does correspond to the historical route. A surviving, unpaved stretch of the old road has been preserved just east of Mission San Juan Bautista; this section of road actually runs parallel to the line of the San Andreas Fault, which can be clearly seen because the ground drops several feet.
  Today the route through San Mateo and Santa Clara counties is designated as State Route 82, and some stretches of it are named El Camino Real.  The old road is part of the de Anza route, located a few miles east of Route 101.
  Note that the official California El Camino Real route misses most of the original 21 missions. While driving along the official "commemorative route" of the Camino Real, the most visible Mission today would probably be the Mission San Miguel, located in the unincorporated village of San Miguel, just off Highway 101 on the Salinas River.
caption: Mission San Miguel as seen from the road while driving the current "commemorative route" of the Camino Real
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