Carmel-by-the-Sea, often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Take a look below for 20 awesome and fun facts about Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, United States.

1. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and rich artistic history.

2. In 1906, the San Francisco Call devoted a full page to the “artists, writers and poets at Carmel-by-the-Sea”, and in 1910 it reported that 60 percent of Carmel’s houses were built by citizens who were “devoting their lives to work connected to the aesthetic arts.”

3. Early City Councils were dominated by artists, and several of the city’s mayors have been poets or actors, including Herbert Heron, founder of the Forest Theater, bohemian writer and actor Perry Newberry, and actor-director Clint Eastwood.

4. The town is known for being dog-friendly, with numerous hotels, restaurants and retail establishments admitting guests with dogs.

5. Carmel is also known for several unusual laws, including a prohibition on wearing high-heel shoes without a permit, enacted to prevent lawsuits arising from tripping accidents caused by irregular pavement.

6. Carmel-by-the-Sea is located on the Pacific coast, about 330 miles (531 km) north of Los Angeles and 120 miles (193 km) south of San Francisco.

7. Communities near Carmel-by-the-Sea include Carmel Valley and Carmel Highlands. The larger town of Monterey borders Carmel to the north.

8. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 3,722, down from 4,081 at the 2000 census.

9. Carmel-by-the-Sea is in an area permeated by Native American, Spanish, Mexican and American history.

10. Most scholars believe that the Esselen-speaking people were the first Native Americans to inhabit the area of Carmel, but the Ohlone people pushed them south into the mountains of Big Sur around the 6th century.

11. The first Europeans to see this land were Spanish mariners led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542, who sailed up the California coast without landing. Another sixty years passed before another Spanish explorer, Sebastián Vizcaíno discovered for Spain what is now known as Carmel Valley in 1602.

12. It is thought that he named the river running through the valley Rio Carmelo in honor of the three Carmelite friars serving as chaplains for the voyage.

13. The Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until 1770, when Gaspar de Portolà, along with Franciscan priests Junípero Serra and Juan Crespí, visited the area in search of a mission site. Portolà and Crespí traveled by land while Serra traveled with the Mission supplies aboard ship, arriving eight days later.

14. The colony of Monterey was established at the same time as the second mission in Alta California and soon became the capital of California, remaining so until 1849.

15. From the late 18th through the early 19th century most of the Ohlone population died out from European diseases (against which they had no immunity), as well as overwork and malnutrition at the missions where the Spanish forced them to live. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 Carmel became Mexican territory.

16. Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo was founded on 3 June 1770 in the nearby settlement of Monterey, but was relocated to Carmel Valley by Junípero Serra due to interactions between soldiers stationed at the nearby Presidio and the native Indians.

17. In December 1771 the transfer was complete as the new stockade of approximately 130×200 became the new Mission Carmel. Simple buildings of plastered mud were the first church and dwellings until a more sturdy structure was built of wood from nearby pine and cypress trees to last through the seasonal rains. This, too, was only a temporary church until a permanent stone edifice was built.

18. In 1784 Serra, after one last tour of all the California missions, died and was buried, at his request, at the Mission in the Sanctuary of the San Carlos Church, next to Crespí, who had passed the previous year. Serra was buried with full military honors.

19. Carmel Mission has importance beyond the history of Serra, who is sometimes called the “Father of California”. It also contains the state’s first library.

20. A welder, John Martin, acquired lands surrounding the Carmel mission in 1833, which he named Mission Ranch. Carmel became part of the United States in 1848, when Mexico ceded California as a result of the Mexican–American War.