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California State Route 4

state highway in California, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ661969 ↗
Source-derived summary

State Route 4 (SR 4) is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California, routed from Interstate 80 in the San Francisco Bay Area to State Route 89 in the Sierra Nevada. It roughly parallels the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a popular area for boating and fishing, with a number of accesses to marinas and other attractions. After crossing the Central Valley, the highway ascends up the Sierra foothills. It passes through Ebbetts Pass and contains the Ebbetts Pass Scenic Byway, a National Scenic Byway.

Route description

Route 4 is defined in section 304 of the California Streets and Highways Code. The definition omits the concurrencies with various other routes instead of duplicating those segments in those other routes' definitions in the code:

Route 4 is from:

(a) Route 80 in Hercules to Route 5 in Stockton via north of Concord and via Antioch.

(b) Route 5 to Route 99.

(c) Route 99 in Stockton to Route 49 at Altaville via the vicinity of Copperopolis.

(d) Route 49 in Angels Camp to Route 89 near Markleeville via Murphys, Calaveras Big Trees, Dorrington, and Bear Valley.

SR 4 begins in Hercules at San Pablo Avenue just to the west of Interstate 80 as part of John Muir Parkway (the actual parkway extends west of San Pablo Avenue as a city-maintained thoroughfare).

Editorial summary

“California State Route 4” enters the record as state highway in California, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what California, State and Route can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 222-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1934. Its strongest next move is a source search built around California, State and Route.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“California State Route 4” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, California, State and Route provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

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 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q661969. Authority coordinates are 38.014, -122.240. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “California State Route 4”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow California State Route 4 primary sources, California State Route 4 archive and California research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “California State Route 4”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “California State Route 4” 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.