Where is the geographic center of this strangely-shaped state? This geographic trivia has been debated for decades in California. Though it may have no practical significance, various communities have tried to claim it and even measure it. You can get an approximation by using a solid cutout map of the state and trying to balance it on a pen or pencil. You will notice that it balances around Madera County more than 20 miles northeast of Fresno.
But that leaves plenty of spatial error to exploit. For instance, in past years, residents of the Sierra Nevada foothills community of O’Neals cited historical markers that placed the center somewhere near their Spring Valley School. Using the latest technologies, more recent measuring surveys by geography students and others have finally zeroed in on what seems to be the accepted location a little farther up North Fork Road near North Fork.
According to surveys completed by volunteers from Fresno State University (including an official state surveyor) and the National Forest Service and the USGS, this is the confirmed geographic center of California as of 2017: latitude 37°09′58″N, longitude 119°26′58″W or (depending on how your GPS reads) 37.16611°N, 119.44944°W. The residents of North Fork have maintained a sign next to their road declaring their town as the center. Local organizations that include the North Fork History Group dedicated a plaque at the verified site a few miles southeast of North Fork along Road 225. By 2017, it had been replaced by a new plaque at the end of some stairs where you may also find a “CAL CENTER” marker. It is fittingly surrounded by an iconic California Sierra Nevada foothills woodland that includes oak and buckeye, but don’t expect to find much human activity there.
If you would like to go there, the late Huell Howser produced a video about this site: Center of California- California’s Gold (608)
