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California Baja (Lower) California and Baja (Lower) California Sur (South)
México Hispano-America

San Diego-Carlsbad-Tijuana

San Diego-Carlsbad-Tijuana is a metropolian area of 5.271 million1 centered on the cities of San Diego and Carlsbad in California, United States of America, and on Tijuana in Baja (Lower) California, México. San Diego proper has a population of 1.395 million2 and Tijuana 1.650 million.3 San Diego proper is located on Mission Bay in southwestern California and in nearby canyons separated by mesas and hills reaching nearly 500 meters. The city grew rapidly during World War II and in the decade after. The Sea World marine amusement park is a tourist attraction.4 The San Diego International Airport is one of the nation's busiest.5 The tallest building is One America Plaza (500 feet, 1991). Other notable buildings include: the California Tower (198 feet, 1914), part of the Museum of Man; Old Point Loma Lighthouse (1855); and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (1966).6

Carlsbad is located on the coast 56 north of downtown San Diego and has a population of 113 thousand.2 It is a resort town, originally famed for its mineral waters. The area's population will be helped by a recently completed desalination plant.

Tijuana is located just south of the United States border, along the Tijuana River and nearby canyons and hills that reach nearly 800 meters. The city stretches westward to beaches along the Pacific Ocean. It has long served as a tourist destination for Anglo-Americans, originally for activities forbidden in the United States.

YearPopulationPolitical entity
2000 CE3,963,0007United States of America and México

Historical Map

map showing California, 2000 CE, with San Diego-Carlsbad-Tijuana marked, Tijuana being just outside of California

top: blue sky and white clouds; left center to foreground in a big 'c': beach, rocks, dune grass, short palm-topped cliffs, low resort buildings; right center to foreground: waves, breaking and swirling
Beach, La Jolla neighborhood, San Diego, California, United States of America

Footnotes

1. Calculation in world-gazetteer.com, acceessed February 6, 2013.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_California_cities_by_population, accessed December 26, 2016 and February 9, 2017.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baja_California_cities, accessed December 26, 2016.
4. http://www.touropia.com/tourist-attractions-in-california/#, accessed December 26, 2016.
5. 45 busiest US airports by total passenger traffic (2014) table in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_the_United_States, accessed December 26, 2016.
6. Information about buildings is from emporis.com, accessed February 9, 2017.
7. Metropolitan figure of 2.814 million from https://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/briefs/phc-t3/tables/tab03.txt, accessed December 26, 2016. To that I added 1.149 million for Tijuana in 2000 from the Historical Population table in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijuana, accessed February 9, 2017. This understates the total as it does not include Mexican suburbs of Tijuana.