San Bernardino, California

About San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino is the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. San Bernardino's estimated population, as of 2006, is 205,010. As of 2006, it was the 18th largest city in California, and the 101st largest city in the United States. San Bernardino is part of the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario Metropolitan Area, which is the 14th largest in the nation and which is commonly referred to as the "Inland Empire". Though much of the housing stock is, on average, older than that of the surrounding region, new homes continue to be built in different parts of the City, with the bulk rising in the Verdemont area on the North side of the San Bernardino Valley.

The City of San Bernardino, California, occupies much of the San Bernardino Valley, which indigenous tribespeople originally referred to as "The Valley of the Cupped Hand of God." Upon seeing the immense Arrowhead geological monument on the side of the San Bernardino Mountains, they found the life-giving waters of the hot and cold springs to which the rock formation pointed.

The City of San Bernardino is one of the oldest communities in the State of California. Named for Saint Bernardine of Sienna on May 20, 1810, San Bernardino, in its present-day location, was not largely settled until 1851 when California entered into the Union. The first Anglo-American colony was established by pioneers associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who would later be recalled in 1857 by Brigham Young. During the interim, the city was officially incorporated in the year 1857. Soon afterward, San Bernardino became an important trading hub in southern California.