{"id":1258,"date":"2016-03-11T21:37:04","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T21:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssdcmoving.local\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2025-02-20T22:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T22:19:14","slug":"how-big-is-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/blog\/how-big-is-california\/","title":{"rendered":"How Big is California?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At 163,696 square miles, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/self-storage\/california\/\">California<\/a> is the third largest state in the United States. But how big is it <em>really<\/em>? 163,696 square miles is a hard number to comprehend. You might be tempted to look at a map to get a visual sense of California&#8217;s size, but be careful: most 2D maps massively distort area in favor of shape and presentation. This includes Google Maps, which uses the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mercator_projection\">Mercator Projection<\/a>, where geographic bodies become larger as you move further from the equator to the poles.<\/p>\n<p>In order to compensate for these mapping distortions, we used <a href=\"http:\/\/mapfrappe.com\/\">special software<\/a> to create an outline of California. As we move the outline around the map, it changes its shape to account for the projection&#8217;s distorting effects. This allowed us to create the following maps which accurately compare California&#8217;s size to bodies of land around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Also, because this is the kind of thing we think about at SelfStorage.com, you&#8217;d need 22.8 billion 10&#215;20 storage units to store California.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/selfstorage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/how-big-is-california.jpg\" alt=\"california\" max-width=\"997\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/p>\n<p style='font-size: 16px'><b>Embed this image on your site<\/b> (copy the code below):<\/p>\n<p><textarea style='width: 90%;height: 100px;padding: 5px' readonly='readonly'><\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/selfstorage.com\/blog\/how-big-is-california\/'><img src='http:\/\/selfstorage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/how-big-is-california.jpg' max-width='1000px' title='How Big is California' alt='California' border='0' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Via <a href='https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/self-storage\/california\/'>via SelfStorage.com California<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/textarea><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 163,696 square miles, California is the third largest state in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-guide"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v26.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Big is California?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/blog\/how-big-is-california\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Big is California?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At 163,696 square miles, California is the third largest state in the United States.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/blog\/how-big-is-california\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SelfStorage.com Moving Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-11T21:37:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-20T22:19:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.selfstorage.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/cali-header.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1001\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"693\" \/>\n\t<meta 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