Inyo County, California


Inyo County is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is on the east side of the Sierra Nevada and southeast of Yosemite National Park in Central California. It contains the Owens River Valley; it is flanked to the west by the Sierra Nevada and to the east by the White Mountains and the Inyo Mountains. Mono County is to the north. With an area of, Inyo is the second-largest county by area in California, after San Bernardino County which is directly south of Inyo County. Almost half of Inyo County's area is within Death Valley National Park. However, with a population density of 1.8 people per square mile, it also has the second-lowest population density in California, after Alpine County.

History

Present-day Inyo county has been the historic homeland for thousands of years of the Mono, Timbisha, Kawaiisu, and Northern Paiute Native Americans. The descendants of these ancestors continue to live in their traditional homelands in the Owens River Valley and in Death Valley National Park.
Inyo County was formed in 1866 out of the territory of the unorganized Coso County, which had been created on April 4, 1864, from parts of Mono County and Tulare County. It acquired more territory from Mono County in 1870 and Kern County and San Bernardino County in 1872.
For many years it has been commonly believed that the county derived its name from the Mono tribe's name for the mountains in its former homeland. Actually the name came to be thought of, mistakenly, as the name of the mountains to the east of the Owens Valley when the first whites there asked the local Owens Valley Paiutes for the name of the mountains to the east. They responded that that was the land of Inyo. They meant by this that those lands belonged to the Timbisha tribe headed by a man whose name was Inyo. Inyo was the name of the headman of one of the Timbisha bands at the time of contact when the first whites, the Bennett-Arcane Party of 1849, wandered, lost, into Death Valley on their expedition to the gold fields of western California. The Owens Valley whites misunderstood the reference and thought that Inyo was the name of the mountains when actually it was the name of the chief, or headman, of the tribe that had those mountains as part of their homeland. In Timbisha, ɨnnɨyun means "it's dangerous".
To supply the growing City of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The Owens River Valley cultures and environments changed substantially. From the 1910s to 1930s the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased much of the valley for water rights and control. In 1941 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system farther upriver into the Mono Basin.

Natural history

Inyo County is host to a number of natural superlatives. Among them are:
, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, is on Inyo County's western border. The Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, the lowest place in North America, is in eastern Inyo County. The difference between the two points is about. They are not visible from each other, but both can be observed from the Panamint Range on the west side of Death Valley, above the Panamint Valley. Thus, Inyo County has the greatest elevation difference among all of the counties and county-equivalents in the contiguous United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water. It is the second-largest county by area in California and the ninth-largest in the United States.

Lakes

There are 22 official wilderness areas in Inyo County that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. This is the second-largest number of any county, exceeded only by San Bernardino County's 35 wilderness areas. Most of these are managed solely by the Bureau of Land Management, but four are integral components of Death Valley National Park or Inyo National Forest and are thus managed by either the National Park Service or the Forest Service. Some of these wilderness areas also extend into neighboring counties.
Except as noted, the wilderness areas are managed solely by the Bureau of Land Management and lie entirely within Inyo County:
Death Valley National Park is a mostly arid United States National Park east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Inyo County and northern San Bernardino County in California, with a small extension into southwestern Nye County and extreme southern Esmeralda County in Nevada. In addition, there is an exclave in southern Nye County. The park covers, encompassing Saline Valley, a large part of Panamint Valley, almost all of Death Valley, and parts of several mountain ranges. Death Valley National Monument was proclaimed in 1933, placing the area under federal protection. In 1994, the monument was redesignated a national park, as well as being substantially expanded to include Saline and Eureka Valleys.
It is the hottest and driest of the national parks in the United States. It also features the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere and the lowest point in North America at the Badwater Basin, which is below sea level. It is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include Creosote Bush, Bighorn Sheep, Coyote, and the Death Valley Pupfish, a survivor of much wetter times. Approximately 95% of the park is designated as wilderness. Death Valley National Park is visited annually by more than 770,000 visitors who come to enjoy its diverse geologic features, desert wildlife, historic sites, scenery, clear night skies, and the solitude of the extreme desert environment.

Other parks

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 19,016 and a median age of 44.8 years. 20.2% of residents were under the age of 18 and 23.7% were 65 years of age or older, and there were 102.3 males for every 100 females overall and 102.6 males for every 100 females age 18 and over.
The racial makeup of the county was 61.8% White, 0.5% Black or African American, 13.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.5% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 11.9% from some other race, and 11.2% from two or more races, while Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 23.1% of the population.
57.9% of residents lived in urban areas, while 42.1% lived in rural areas.
There were 8,046 households in the county, of which 25.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 26.4% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present; about 33.2% of households were made up of individuals and 16.9% had someone 65 years of age or older living alone.
There were 9,469 housing units, of which 15.0% were vacant, and among occupied units 64.3% were owner-occupied while 35.7% were renter-occupied; the homeowner vacancy rate stood at 0.8% and the rental vacancy rate at 6.5%.

Racial and ethnic composition

Race / Ethnicity Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010% 2020
White alone 15,19414,81913,35212,29611,03584.91%81.06%74.41%66.30%58.03%
Black or African American alone 227120102850.12%0.39%0.11%0.55%0.45%
Native American or Alaska Native alone 1,5231,6651,6781,8952,1898.51%9.11%9.35%10.22%11.51%
Asian alone 721721582292730.40%0.94%0.88%1.23%1.44%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone xx1515130.08%0.08%0.08%0.08%0.07%
Other race alone 0182321870.00%0.10%0.13%0.11%0.46%
Mixed race or Multiracial xx442391935xx2.46%2.11%4.92%
Hispanic or Latino 1,0841,5362,2573,5974,3996.06%8.40%12.58%19.40%23.13%
Total17,89518,28117,94518,54619,016 100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%