Fresno (Spanish for "ash tree") is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. Fresno covers about 112 square miles (290 km2) and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, making it the fifth-most populous city in California, the most populous inland city in California, and the 34th-most populous city in the nation.Named for the abundant ash trees lining the San Joaquin River, Fresno was founded in 1872 as a railway station of the Central Pacific Railroad before it was incorporated in 1885. The city has since become an economic hub of Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley, with much of the surrounding areas in the Metropolitan Fresno region predominantly tied to large-scale agricultural production. Fresno is near the geographical center of California. It lies approximately 220 miles (350 km) north of Los Angeles, 170 miles (270 km) south of the state capital, Sacramento, and 185 miles (300 km) southeast of San Francisco. Yosemite National Park is about 60 miles (100 km) to the north, Kings Canyon National Park is 60 miles (100 km) to the east, and Sequoia National Park is 75 miles (120 km) to the southeast.

California is a state in the Western United States. It is bordered by Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, Oregon to the north, and the Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With over 39.5 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous and the third-largest U.S. state by area.

Mariposa Grove is a sequoia grove located near Wawona, California, United States, in the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park. It is the largest grove of giant sequoias in the park, with several hundred mature examples of the tree. Two of its trees are among the 30 largest giant sequoias in the world. The grove closed on July 6, 2015, for a restoration project and reopened on June 15, 2018.The Mariposa Grove was first visited by non-natives in 1857 when Galen Clark and Milton Mann found it. They named the grove after Mariposa County, California, where the grove is located.The giant sequoia named Grizzly Giant is between probably 1900–2400 years old: the oldest tree in the grove. It has a volume of 34,010 cubic feet (963 m3), and is counted as the 25th largest tree in the world. It is 210 feet (64 m) tall, and has a heavily buttressed base with a basal circumference of 28 m (92 ft) or a diameter of 30 feet (9.1 m); above the buttresses at 2.4 m above ground, the circumference is only 23 m. Grizzly Giant's first branch from the base is 2 m (6 ft) in diameter. Another tree, the Wawona Tree, had a tunnel cut through it in the nineteenth century that was wide enough for horse-drawn carriages and early automobiles to drive through. Weakened by the large opening at its base, the tree fell down in a storm in 1969. Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, ceding Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the state of California. Criticism of stewardship over the land led to the state's returning the grove to federal control with the establishment of Yosemite National Park. The Mariposa Grove Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Visalia ( vy-SAYL-yə, vih-) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California, about 230 mi (370 km) southeast of San Francisco, 190 mi (310 km) north of Los Angeles, 36 mi (58 km) west of Sequoia National Park, and 43 mi (69 km) south of Fresno. The population was 134,605 as of a 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimate. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley after Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, and Modesto, the 44th-most populous in California, and 202nd in the United States.As the county seat of Tulare County, Visalia serves as the economic and governmental center to one of the most productive agricultural counties in the country.Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks are located in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, the highest mountain range in the contiguous United States.