I was watching the 49ers play the Seahawks the other night, and since the game was so lousy, my mind was wandering onto other topics.
The game was played in the 49ers home stadium, Levis Stadium, which is located in Santa Clara, California. The city of Santa Clara happens to be located in Santa Clara County, and so, you might think that Santa Clara is the seat of Santa Clara County.
Interestingly (interesting to me, anyway), Santa Clara is not the county seat; San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County. It occurred to me that there are a bunch of counties in California with a city of the same name located within that county but for whatever reason that city was not chosen to be the seat of the county which shares its name.
Of course, there's no requirement that a county seat have the same as the county itself; in fact, California may be unusual in that so many county seats do have the same name as the county. This includes many of the largest and most well-known counties such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Fresno. In all, 18 of California's 58 counties have the same name for the seat and county.*
Thus, I think that it is unusual for a county to contain a city with the same name as the county but that city not be the seat. Here's the list I compiled instead of paying attention to the 49ers game:
AMADOR - The seat of Amador County is Jackson. Amador City is about six miles north of Jackson on old highway 49.
ALAMEDA - The seat of Alameda County is Oakland. The city of Alameda is adjacent to Oakland, lying to the west on Alameda Island.
IMPERIAL - The seat of Imperial County is El Centro. The city of Imperial is about a dozen miles to the north.
MENDOCINO - The seat of Mendocino County is Ukiah. While Ukiah lies inland along US 101, the city of Mendocino is on the coast.
MONTEREY - The seat of Monterey County is Salinas. Like Ukiah (see above), Salinas lies along US 101 while Monterey is on the coast.
ORANGE - The seat of Orange County is Santa Ana. The city of Orange is adjacent to Santa Ana.
SAN BENITO - The seat of San Benito County is at Hollister. The tiny hamlet of San Benito is in a very remote part of the county, 35 miles south of Hollister and east of Pinnacles National Park.
SAN MATEO - The seat of San Mateo County is Redwood City. San Mateo is about a seven miles north.
SANTA CLARA - The seat of Santa Clara County is San Jose. The city of Santa Clara is just north of San Jose.
SONOMA - The seat of Sonoma County is Santa Rosa. The city of Sonoma can be found about 20 miles to the southeast of Santa Rosa, closer to the Napa Valley.
TULARE - The seat of Tulare County is Visalia. The city of Tulare is fifteen miles southwest of Visalia.
Here are two more which don't quite meet the criteria, but I threw them in because they fit the theme. These two are cities in California which have the same name as a county, but these two are not located within the county which shares their name. Of course, these two are not the county seat.
ALPINE - Alpine County is located south of Lake Tahoe, a sparsely-populated county, high in the Sierras and far off the beaten path for most Californians. The seat of Alpine County is Markleeville. On the other hand, the city of Alpine is a suburb of San Diego, several hundred miles from Alpine County.
SAN JOAQUIN - San Joaquin County is south of Sacramento, around Stockton. The city of San Joaquin is found on the dusty westside of Fresno County, about 100 miles south of Stockton.
* I counted Nevada City as a match with Nevada County but did not count Lakeport, which is the seat of Lake County.
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