Place:Imperial, California, United States

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Imperial County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 174,528, making it the least populous county in Southern California. The county seat is El Centro. Imperial is the most recent California county to be established, as it was created in 1907 out of portions of San Diego County.

Imperial County is located in the far southeast of California, in the Imperial Valley. It borders San Diego County to the west, Riverside County to the north, the U.S. state of Arizona to the east and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. It includes the El Centro Metropolitan Statistical Area and is part of the Southern California border region, the smallest but most economically diverse region in the state.

Although this region is a desert, with high temperatures and low average rainfall of per year, the economy is heavily based on agriculture due to irrigation, supplied wholly from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal.

The Imperial Valley is divided between the United States and Mexico, and Imperial County is heavily influenced by Mexican culture. Approximately 80% of the county's population is Hispanic, with the vast majority being of Mexican origin. The remainder of the population is predominantly non-Hispanic white as well as smaller African American, Native American and Asian minorities.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Spanish explorer Melchor Díaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the area around Imperial Valley in 1540. The explorer Juan Bautista de Anza also explored the area in 1776. Years later, after the Mexican–American War, the northern half of the valley was annexed by the U.S., while the southern half remained under Mexican rule. Small scale settlement in natural aquifer areas occurred in the early 19th century (the present-day site of Mexicali), but most permanent settlement (Americans in the U.S. side, Mexicans in the other side) was after 1900.

In 1905, torrential rainfall in the American Southwest caused the Colorado River (the only drainage for the region) to flood, including canals that had been built to irrigate the Imperial Valley. Since the valley is partially below sea level, the waters never fully receded, but collected in the Salton Sink in what is now called the Salton Sea.

Imperial County was formed in 1907 from the eastern portion of San Diego County. The county took its name from Imperial Valley, itself named for the Imperial Land Company, a subsidiary of the California Development Company, which at the turn of the 20th century had claimed the southern portion of the Colorado Desert for agriculture. Much of the Imperial Land Company's land also existed in Mexico (Baja California). The objective of the company was commercial crop farming development.

By 1910, the land company had managed to settle and develop thousands of farms on both sides of the border. The Mexican Revolution soon after severely disrupted the company's plans. Nearly 10,000 farmers and their families in Mexico were ethnically cleansed by the rival Mexican armies. Not until the 1920s was the other side of California in America sufficiently peaceful and prosperous for the company to earn a return for a large percentage of Mexicans, but some chose to stay and lay down roots in newly sprouted communities in the valley.

The county experienced a period of migration of "Okies" from drought-trodden dust bowl farms by the need of migrant labor, and prosperous job-seekers alike from across the U.S. arrived in the 1930s and 1940s, especially in World War II and after the completion of the All American Canal from its source, the Colorado River, from 1948 to 1951. By the 1950 census, over 50,000 residents lived in Imperial County alone, about 40 times that of 1910. Most of the population was year-round but would increase every winter by migrant laborers from Mexico. Until the 1960s, the farms in Imperial County provided substantial economic returns to the company and the valley.

During the Great Recession of 2008–11, El Centro had one of the highest unemployment rates (above 30–34%) in the U.S. Imperial ranks as one of California's poorest counties. It has a lower median household income than both the state and national medians.

Timeline

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990

Cemeteries

Cemeteries of Imperial County, California, United States

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