San Fernando (Spanish for “St. Ferdinand”) is a city in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Take a look below for 10 interesting and amazing facts about San Fernando, California, United States.
1. It is bordered on all sides by the City of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census the population of San Fernando was 23,645.
2. The city was named for the nearby Mission San Fernando Rey de España (which in turn was named after St. Ferdinand), and was part of the Mexican land grant of Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando.
3. In 1874 Charles Maclay, San Fernando founder, bought 56,000 acres (227 km2) of the Rancho.
4. In 1882, cousins George K. Porter and Benjamin F. Porter of future Porter Ranch each received one-third of the total land. In 1885, Maclay founded the Maclay School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in his newly founded town of San Fernando.
5. After his death it became an affiliate and moved to the campus of the University of Southern California and then the Claremont School of Theology.
6. While most of the towns in the surrounding San Fernando Valley agreed to annexation by Los Angeles in the 1910s, eager to tap the bountiful water supply provided by the newly opened Los Angeles Aqueduct, San Fernando’s abundant groundwater supplies allowed it to remain a separate city. In the first half of the 20th century after incorporation in 1911, the city of San Fernando has tried to annex their city limits to Sylmar, Mission Hills and Pacoima, but the city of Los Angeles has kept up their rapid annexation and caused many failed attempts; and by the 1950s, the city said that annexation was hard to do, due to the large bureaucracy of Los Angeles.
7. As the San Fernando Valley has transitioned from an agricultural area to a suburban one in the decades after World War II, San Fernando retained its independence.
8. As with much of the San Fernando Valley east of the San Diego Freeway, the city of San Fernando has seen a significant demographic shift in recent years. Declining birth-rates and an aging population of middle-class whites, who once dominated the area in the 1950s, has contributed to the movement into other parts of the San Fernando Valley.
9. There has also been movement into the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys to the north. Latinos became the majority population (the largest percentage in the Greater Los Angeles area at 90 percent as of 2015).
10. The City of San Fernando is governed by a city council. Members of the City Council are elected and serve four year terms. The mayor is appointed every year, on a rotating basis, by a majority vote of the council. The Council meets on the first and third Monday of each month at 6:00 pm in the Council Chambers.
