California adjoins the Pacific Ocean to the west, Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With an area of 160,000 square miles, it is the third-largest state in the United States in size, after Alaska and Texas. If it were a country, California would be the 59th-largest in the world in area.
In the middle of the state lies the California Central Valley, bounded by the coastal mountain ranges in the west, the Sierra Nevada to the east, the Cascade Range in the north and the Tehachapi Mountains in the south. The Central Valley is California's agricultural heartland and grows approximately one-third of the nation's food.
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