Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. Drained for agricultural development, the site is now in Kings County, which was created in 1893 from the western portion of the formerly larger Tulare County.
Tulare County comprises the Visalia-Porterville, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is located south of Fresno, spanning from the San Joaquin Valley east to the Sierra Nevada.
Sequoia National Park is located in the county, as is part of Kings Canyon National Park, in its northeast corner (shared with Fresno County), and part of Mount Whitney, on its eastern border (shared with Inyo County). As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117, up from 442,179 at the 2010 census.
History
The land was occupied for thousands of years by the Yokuts. Beginning in the eighteenth century, Spain established missions to colonize California and convert the American Indians to Christianity. Comandante Pedro Fages, while hunting for deserters in the Central Valley in 1772, discovered a great lake surrounded by marshes and filled with rushes; he named it Los Tules (the tules). It is from this lake that the county derives its name. The root of the name Tulare is found in the Nahuatl word tullin, designating cattail or similar reeds.
In 1805, 1806 and again in 1816, the Spanish out of Mission San Luis Obispo explored Lake Tulare. Alt URL Bubal was a native village located on the Western side of Lake Tulare. In 1816, Fr. Luis Martinez of Mission San Luis Obispo arrived at Bubal with soldiers and armed Christian Northern Chumash pressuring the people to send their children for baptism at his mission on the coast. Conflict broke out, and Martinez's party burned Bubal to the ground, destroying the cache of food harvested for the winter. Although Bubal's relationship with the Christian Salinans under Fr. Cabot at Mission San Miguel was better, between 1816 and 1834, Bubal was a center of native resistance. The marshes around Lake Tulare were impenetrable by Spanish horses, which gave the Yokuts a military advantage. At one point, the Spanish considered building a presidio with 100 soldiers at Bubal to control the resistance, but that never came to pass. The Spanish called the natives of the area Tulareños, and before 1816 and after 1834, they were incorporated into Mission San Miguel and Mission San Luis Obispo.
After Mexico achieved independence, it continued to rule California. After the Mexican Cession and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the area became part of the United States. Tulare County was soon formed from parts of Mariposa County only four years later in 1852. There were two early attempts to split off a new Buena Vista County in 1855 and Coso County in 1864, but both failed. Parts of the county's territory were given to Fresno County in 1856, to Kern County and Inyo County in 1866 and to Kings County in 1893.
The infectious disease Tularemia caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis is named after Tulare County.
In 1908 Colonel Allen Allensworth and associates founded the town of Allensworth as a black farming community. They intended to develop a place where African Americans could thrive free of white discrimination. It was the only community in California founded, financed and governed by African Americans. While its first years were highly successful, the community encountered environmental problems from dropping water tables which eventually caused it to fail. Today the historic area is preserved as the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.3%, is water.
Adjacent counties
Fresno County—north Inyo County—east Kern County—south Kings County—west
Lakes
Rivers
Parks
National protected areas Blue Ridge National Wildlife Refuge Giant Sequoia National Monument (part) Inyo National Forest (part) Kings Canyon National Park (part) Pixley National Wildlife Refuge Sequoia National Forest (part) Sequoia National Park
Sequoia National Park
Sequoia National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Visalia. It was established in 1890 as the second U.S. national park, after Yellowstone. The park spans . Encompassing a vertical relief of nearly , the park contains among its natural resources the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, Mount Whitney, at above sea level. The park is south of and contiguous with Kings Canyon National Park; the two are administered by the National Park Service as one unit, called Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Flora Tulare County is rich in native plant species due in part to a diversity in habitats, including creeks, rivers, hills, and mountains. Native plants include incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), valley oak (Quercus lobata), California bay (Umbellularia californica), manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanita), Salvia spathacea, mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides), milkweed (Asclepias speciosa), Epilobium cleistogamum, monkeyflower (Mimulus), Penstemon, California melic (Melica californica), and deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens).
Government and policing Administration Tulare County is a general law county under the California Constitution. That is, it does not have a county charter. The county is governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors. Supervisors are elected by districts for four-year terms. There are no term limits in effect. The chairman and vice-chairman are elected annually by the Board of Supervisors from among its members.
Sheriff The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office provides court protection, county jail operation, patrol and detective functions in the unincorporated areas of the county. Incorporated cities have municipal police departments or contract with the Sheriff’s Office for their police operations.
Transportation
Major highways State Route 43 State Route 63 State Route 65 State Route 99 State Route 137 State Route 180 State Route 190 State Route 198 State Route 201 State Route 216 State Route 245
Public transportation Tulare County Area Transit (TCaT) provides an intracounty bus service linking the population centers. One TCaT route connects to Delano in Kern County.
The cities of Tulare, Porterville, and Visalia have their own local intracity bus services.
Greyhound Lines provides long-distance, intercity bus service outside the county.
Airports The Porterville Municipal Airport, located from Downtown Porterville. The airport offers general aviation to the public; it is also home to Porterville Air Attack Base on the south part of the airport. The Visalia Municipal Airport is a city-owned airport for the city of Visalia, California. Mefford Field is a city-owned general aviation airport located in Tulare.
The nearest full-operation commercial airports are Bakersfield's Meadows Field Airport to the south, and Fresno's Fresno Yosemite International Airport to the north. V-LINE buses operate daily service between the Visalia Transit Center and the Fresno Airport.
Crime
The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense, as of 2019.
Population and crime rates Population 473,117 Violent crime 334 0.70 Homicide 9 0.01 Forcible rape 30 0.06 Robbery 64 0.13 Aggravated assault 231 0.48 Property crime 1,893 4.00 Burglary 637 1.34 Larceny-theftOnly larceny-theft cases involving property over $400 in value are reported as property crimes. 1,254 2.65 Motor vehicle theft 2 0.004 Arson 0 0.00
Cities by population and crime rates
Cities by population and crime rates City PopulationCrime in the United States, 2019, Table 8 (California). Retrieved December 7, 2021. Violent crimes Violent crime rateper 1,000 persons Property crimes Property crime rateper 1,000 persons Dinuba 24,685 161 6.52 530 21.47 Exeter 10,557 26 2.46 265 25.10 Farmersville 10,781 35 3.24 190 17.62 Lindsay 13,708 69 5.03 250 18.23 Porterville 60,209 192 3.18 1,297 21.54 Tulare 65,134 261 4.00 1,469 22.55 Visalia 134,961 586 4.34 3,900 28.89 Woodlake 7,682 28 3.64 88 11.45
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 473,117 and a median age of 32.3 years; 30.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 12.2% were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 98.4 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 96.5 males.
The racial makeup was 39.4% White, 1.4% Black or African American, 2.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 3.6% Asian, 0.2% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 34.9% from some other race, and 18.3% from two or more races; Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 65.5% of the population.
According to Census 2020, 3.7% of residents reported German ancestry, 3.2% English, 2.8% Irish, 2.4% Portuguese, and 2.3% American, while 48.7% spoke English, 47.4% Spanish, and 1.0% Indo-European languages as their first language.
79.9% of residents lived in urban areas, while 20.1% lived in rural areas.
There were 141,987 households, of which 45.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 24.6% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present, 16.8% of households were made up of individuals, and 7.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. Of all households, 52.5% were married couples living together, 15.2% had a male householder with no spouse present, 20.8% were non-families, and the average household and family sizes were 3.20 and 3.57 respectively.
There were 150,652 housing units, of which 5.8% were vacant; among occupied units, 58.5% were owner-occupied and 41.5% were renter-occupied, with homeowner and rental vacancy rates of 1.1% and 3.6%, respectively.
The population density was .
The median income for a household in the county was $57,692, and the median income for a family was $53,330. The per capita income for the county was $23,096. About 18.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.0% of those under age 18 and 13.8% of those age 65 or over.
Racial and ethnic composition +Tulare County, California – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010 Pop 2020% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010% 2020White alone (NH)159,996170,283153,916143,935125,02265.11%54.59%41.82%32.55%26.43%Black or African American alone (NH)3,4484,3055,1225,4975,3321.40%1.38%1.39%1.24%1.13%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)2,5583,2283,0113,3233,4581.04%1.03%0.82%0.75%0.73%Asian alone (NH)5,06612,46811,45714,20415,9972.06%4.00%3.11%3.21%3.38%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)x included in the Asian category in the 1980 Censusx included in the Asian category in the 1990 Census257370511xx0.07%0.08%0.11%Other race alone (NH)1,3727444446412,1320.56%0.24%0.12%0.14%0.45%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)x not an option in the 1980 Censusx not an option in the 1990 Census6,9686,14410,770xx1.89%1.39%2.28%Hispanic or Latino (any race)73,298120,893186,846268,065309,89529.83%38.76%50.77%60.62%65.50%Total245,738311,921368,021442,179473,117 100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%
2010 Census The 2010 United States census reported that Tulare County had a population of 442,179. The racial makeup of Tulare County was 265,618 (60.1%) White, 7,196 (1.6%) African American, 6,993 (1.6%) Native American, 15,176 (3.4%) Asian, 509 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 128,263 (29.0%) from other races, and 18,424 (4.2%) from two or more races. There were 268,065 people (60.6%) of Hispanic or Latino origin, of any race.