Santa Maria CA

Santa Maria is a beautiful city located in the county of Santa Barbara. The city is placed on the Central Coast of California. The estimated population of this city was 91,972 inhabitants in November 2008. The city has more inhabitants than the capital, Santa Barbara. Santa Maria is renowned for the wine industry and Santa Maria Style Barbecue.

The US Census Bureau says that the area of this city covers 19 square miles ( around 51 km2). Of these miles 19.3 square miles are on land and the rest on water.

The city is just on the north of the small town Orcutt and south of Santa Maria river. The city is in a valley on the west of Pacific Ocean, right next to the San Rafael Mountains.

Guadalupe, a big city is just 9 miles ( around 14 km) west of the Santa Maria.

In the city’s life agriculture plays a very important role. In Santa Maria there are a lot of wineries, winemakers and vineyards. It is also called the great wine country. All the agricultural areas which surround the city are quite productive. There people grow squash, wine grapes, celery, strawberries, lettuce, beans, broccoli and spinach.

There are also a lot of cattle ranchers in the Santa Maria valley.

But over the past few years other industries like communications, aerospace, development, energy, retail and manufacturing have started to develop in the area. The last census performed on the area indicated that there were 77,423 people, 22,146 households, and 16,653 families residing in Santa Maria. 4,005.8 people/square mile is the density of the population. The racial make up is 66.0% White, 1.87% African American, 1.78% Native American, 4.74% Asian. The climate is warm and a bit dry and summers are quite pleasant in the area, especially if you have a wine yard somewhere.