Baja California peninsula
peninsula of North America on the Pacific Coast of Mexico
The Baja California peninsula (Spanish: Península de Baja California, lit. 'Lower California peninsula') is a peninsula in northwestern Mexico. It separates the Gulf of California from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula extends from Mexicali, Baja California, in the north to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, in the south.
With a length of 1,247 km (775 miles), its width ranges from 40 km (25 miles) at its narrowest to 320 km (200 miles) at its widest point and has approximately 3,000 km (1,900 miles) of coastline and approximately 65 islands. The total area of the Baja California peninsula is 143,390 km2 (55,360 sq mi).
The peninsula is separated from mainland Mexico by the Gulf of California and the Colorado River. There are four main desert areas on the peninsula: the San Felipe Desert, the Central Coast Desert, the Vizcaíno Desert, and the Magdalena Plain Desert.
History
The name of California existed as a myth among European explorers before it was discovered. The earliest known mention of the idea of California was in the 1510 romance novel Las Sergas de Esplandián by Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The book described the Island of California as being west of the Indies, "very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Baja California peninsula” is peninsula of North America on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Baja, California and peninsula, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178543. VIAF identifies the subject as 315149350. The Library of Congress control number is sh85011050. Authority coordinates are 28.000, -113.500. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1510.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baja California peninsula” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.