

Places by population, race, and income Places by population and race Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)

The namesake of the mission, city and county is Saint Louis of Toulouse, the young bishop of Toulouse ( Obispo and Tolosa in Spanish) in 1297. Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded on September 1, 1772, in the area that is now the city of San Luis Obispo. Important settlements existed in coastal areas such as Morro Bay and Los Osos. There has been significant settlement here at least as early as the Millingstone Horizon thousands of years ago. The prehistory of San Luis Obispo County is strongly influenced by the Chumash people. San Luis Obispo lies south of Atascadero and north of the Five Cities region. Inland, the cities of Paso Robles, Templeton, and Atascadero lie along the Salinas River, near the Paso Robles wine region. Just south of the Five Cities, San Luis Obispo County borders northern Santa Barbara County. Today, the Five Cities region consists of Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, Arroyo Grande, Oceano, and Halcyon (basically the area from Pismo Beach to Oceano). The Five Cities originally were: Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach (then known as Grover City), Oceano, Fair Oaks and Halcyon. To the south are Avila Beach and the Five Cities region. These cities and villages are located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo. Other coastal towns (listed from north to south) include Cambria, Cayucos, Morro Bay, and Los Osos -Baywood Park. The town of San Simeon is located at the foot of the ridge where newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst built Hearst Castle. Strawberries are the largest agricultural crop in the county.

San Luis Obispo County is the third largest producer of wine in California, surpassed only by Sonoma and Napa counties. Grapes and other agriculture products are an important part of the economy. Tourism, especially for the wineries, is popular. The small size of the county's communities, scattered along the beaches, coastal hills, and mountains of the Santa Lucia range, provides a wide variety of coastal and inland hill ecologies to support fishing, agriculture, and tourist activities.Ĭalifornia Polytechnic State University has almost 20,000 students. Junípero Serra founded the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa in 1772, and San Luis Obispo grew around it. As of the 2020 census, the population was 282,424. San Luis Obispo County ( / s æ n ˌ l uː ɪ s oʊ ˈ b ɪ s p oʊ/ ( listen)), officially the County of San Luis Obispo, is a county on the Central Coast of California. A statue of Fray Junípero Serra stands outside the church. The entrance lobby and belfry of the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa.
