California Citrus Growing Regions: A County-by-County Overview

California’s citrus industry is geographically concentrated, but it is not — and never has been — a single region. The state’s commercial citrus production is distributed across at least nine counties, each with its own microclimate, water history, varietal mix, and civic relationship to the industry. This page is an editorial overview of those counties. It is intended as an orientation rather than a production atlas; for production statistics the canonical sources are the California Department of Food and Agriculture county crop reports and the USDA-NASS California Field Office citrus forecasts.

The southern San Joaquin Valley — the modern core

Tulare County

Tulare County is the largest citrus-producing county in California and, by extension, the largest in the United States. Roughly two-thirds of the state’s fresh navel orange crop comes from Tulare County orchards in the Lindsay, Exeter, Strathmore, Porterville, Orosi, and Terra Bella districts. The county’s foothill bench lands along the eastern edge of the valley produce the dry-summer, cool-winter conditions that develop the sugar-acid balance and the deep coloration of premium California navels. Lindsay is the headquarters of Sunkist Growers’ Lindsay packing operations and the home of the Lindsay Olive Growers — itself a heritage cooperative dating to the same era as the CFGE. The University of California’s Lindcove Research and Extension Center, the state’s primary citrus research station, is located in Tulare County near Exeter.

Kern County

Kern County is the second-largest citrus-producing county in the state. The citrus districts cluster in the southeastern corner of the county — Arvin, Lamont, and the Edison-Bear Mountain bench — where the Kern County Land Company and its corporate successors developed large-scale citrus operations from the 1920s forward. Kern’s citrus geography differs from Tulare’s in that the average grove size is larger and ownership is more concentrated among institutional and family-corporate operations. The county is also a significant producer of seedless mandarins, including the Tango and W. Murcott varieties popularized under the “Cuties” and “Halos” brands.

Fresno County

Fresno County is the third-largest citrus county, with concentration in the Orange Cove, Sanger, Reedley, and Parlier districts along the Kings River alluvial fan. Fresno County citrus shares its packing infrastructure with the Tulare County districts to the south and is largely indistinguishable from a varietal standpoint.

The Ventura coastal district

Ventura County

Ventura County is the historic center of California lemon production. The Limoneira Company, founded in Santa Paula in 1893, is the oldest continuously operating citrus company in the state and remains the largest single lemon producer in the country. Ventura’s coastal microclimate — fog-cooled summers, frost-rare winters — produces the year-round lemon harvest that distinguishes California lemon production from the more seasonal navel orange crop of the interior valleys. The Santa Paula and Fillmore districts retain a substantial share of the county’s grove acreage despite ongoing development pressure along the U.S. 101 corridor.

The historic Southern California citrus belt

Riverside County

Riverside County is the historic birthplace of the California navel orange industry. The 1873 Tibbets trees in Riverside launched the commercial Washington Navel era, and by 1900 Riverside was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States — a distinction earned almost entirely from citrus. Today commercial citrus production in Riverside County is a small fraction of what it was at mid-century; most of the historic grove land has been urbanized. The remaining commercial acreage is concentrated in the Coachella Valley around Mecca and Thermal, which produces a distinctive early-season grapefruit and date-citrus mix under different climatic conditions than the inland valleys to the west.

San Bernardino County

San Bernardino County’s citrus industry was concentrated in the Redlands, Highland, Yucaipa, and Mentone districts. At its 1920s peak the county was second only to Los Angeles County in citrus production. Today the commercial industry is essentially extinct in San Bernardino County, but the civic architecture of the citrus era — the Mission Revival packing houses, the grower-funded libraries, the cooperative headquarters buildings — remains substantially intact, particularly in Redlands.

Orange County

Orange County is named for the crop it no longer produces. At the 1948 peak the county had more than 65,000 acres of commercial citrus, concentrated in the Anaheim, Orange, Tustin, and Irvine districts. The conversion of Orange County citrus land to housing and commercial development between 1955 and 1985 is one of the most rapid and complete agricultural land-use transitions in American history. A small heritage acreage remains, primarily in the eastern foothills.

The Sacramento Valley citrus districts

Butte County

Butte County is the northern outlier of California commercial citrus. The Oroville and Palermo districts produce a small but historically significant mandarin and navel crop, with the Sierra foothill conditions producing fruit that ripens later than the southern San Joaquin Valley harvest. The Oroville Mandarin Festival, held each November, is the civic expression of the county’s citrus identity.

Glenn County

Glenn County’s citrus production is concentrated in small specialty operations rather than the large commercial blocks of the southern valleys. The county’s agricultural identity is more closely associated with almonds, walnuts, and rice, but a heritage citrus presence persists in the Hamilton City and Orland districts.

How to read California citrus geography

The geography of California citrus has shifted twice. The first shift, between 1873 and 1920, moved the industry from Los Angeles County into the inland Southern California valleys — Riverside, San Bernardino, and the eastern San Gabriel Valley. The second shift, between 1945 and 1980, moved it north into the southern San Joaquin Valley, where it remains. Each shift was driven by a combination of frost risk, water cost, land cost, and labor availability. Understanding that geographic history is essential to understanding why a tour of “California citrus country” today means Tulare and Kern, not Riverside and Redlands — even though every story about California citrus still starts in Riverside.