It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about square miles km 2 and had a population of , as of the census , making it the fifth-most populous city in California , the most populous inland city in California, and the 34th-most populous city in the nation.
Named for the abundant ash trees lining the San Joaquin River , Fresno was founded in as a railway station of the Central Pacific Railroad before it was incorporated in It has since become an economic hub of Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley, with much of the surrounding areas in the Metropolitan Fresno region predominantly tied to large-scale agricultural production. Fresno is near the geographic center of California, approximately miles km north of Los Angeles , miles km south of the state capital, Sacramento , and miles km southeast of San Francisco.
Yosemite National Park is about 60 miles km to the north, Kings Canyon National Park 60 miles km to the east, and Sequoia National Park 75 miles km to the southeast. Fresno is also the third-largest majority-Hispanic city in the United States with The original inhabitants of the San Joaquin Valley region were the Yokuts people and Miwok people , who engaged in trading with other Californian tribes of Native Americans including coastal peoples such as the Chumash of the Central California coast, with whom they are thought to have traded plant and animal products.
Some residents rebuilt, others moved. Flooding also destroyed the town of Scottsburg on the nearby Kings River that winter. Rebuilt on higher ground, Scottsburg was renamed Centerville. In , Anthony Easterby purchased land bounded by the present Chestnut, Belmont, Clovis and California avenues, that today is called the Sunnyside district.
Unable to grow wheat for lack of water, he hired sheep man Moses Church in to create an irrigation system. In , the Central Pacific Railroad established a station near Easterby's—by now a hugely productive wheat farm—for its new Southern Pacific line. Soon there was a store near the station and the store grew into the town of Fresno Station, later called Fresno. At that time, Mariposa street was the main artery, a rough dusty or muddy depression. Fresno became an incorporated city in Two years after the station was established, county residents voted to move the county seat from Millerton to Fresno.
