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Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, including the state’s third largest city San Jose, a major center of government, commerce, and culture; the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern California coast, the Big Sur coastline area, the Sierra Nevada including Yosemite Valley and Lake Tahoe, and Mt. Shasta, the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range.
Native Americans arrived in Northern California perhaps as early as 5,000 to 8,000 BCE, and successive waves of arrivals led to one of the most densely populated areas of pre-Columbian North America. The arrival of European explorers from the early 1500s to the mid-1700s, did not lead to European settlements in Northern California. The Spanish mission at Monterey was the first European settlement in the area, followed by other missions along the coast—eventually extending as far north as Sonoma County.

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News from the San Francisco Chronicle

S.F.: Hospital address gets clearer

Aug 20, 2008 7:00 am

RESULTS: DAY 19 S.F. address is clearer: Every couple of minutes, patients walk in and out of the St. Luke's Monteagle Medical Center on 1580 Valencia St. in San Francisco. On Tuesday, those patients ...

Bill would make hybrids heard on streets

Aug 20, 2008 7:00 am

Electric and hybrid vehicles may be good for the environment, but a California lawmaker says they're bad news for the blind. State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat, is pushing a bill aimed a...

Weather won't be clearly better

Aug 20, 2008 7:00 am

This woman running along the bay shoreline in San Francisco on Tuesday had her timing right. The weather today is expected to be several degrees cooler in San Francisco, reaching only 63 degrees. For ...

Plastic-bag lawsuit in Manhattan Beach

Aug 20, 2008 7:00 am

Plastic bag retailers and manufacturers are suing Manhattan Beach over the city's recent plastic bag ban. The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition says the city violated the California Environmental Quality...

Budget impasse hits home for child care center

Aug 19, 2008 7:07 am

Kathy Sapp, who operates a state-funded day care center in her East Oakland home, has been running on fumes since the state Department of Education - its purse strings tied because of the budget impas...

Foreclosures smack home prices - down 29.3%

Aug 19, 2008 7:00 am

Cut-rate foreclosed homes being unloaded by banks wreaked havoc on the Bay Area's median price in July, sending it down nearly 30 percent to a level not seen in more than four years. A third of all ex...

All charges dismissed in 2 beatings

Aug 19, 2008 7:00 am

An Alameda County judge reluctantly dismissed all charges Tuesday against a man accused of beating two elderly Berkeley men - both of whom later died - on the grounds that the defense wasn't done cros...

Alligators have new swampy home in park

Aug 19, 2008 7:00 am

You know the job game? That's the game people play, almost automatically, when they meet at a bar or a party. Everybody says their name and what they do for a living; coolest job wins. Rick Cleveland ...

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