California’s economy has shifted marketed through the years. Despite the boom years of the gold rush, it quickly petered out as the state soon became a trade hub by reason of its large and profitable harbors for trade in the east. Quickly developing into both a trade nexus and banking center for the western United States and indeed the nation as a whole. What we think of as modern California did not truly begin until the twentieth century. With the completion of the Owens aqueduct permitting the dry town to truly grow and expand allowed it to support a fledgling Motion Picture industry that was increasingly moving west from its beginnings in the east.

The Motion Picture Industry was crucial to the development of California into its modern state. While the Industry itself was centered in Hollywood and the San Francisco area in general, the motion picture industry took advantage of the natural beauty of the state at large, moving as needed to its other large, wondrous cities, the lakes, valleys, forests and mountains that the state was blessed with. With so much beauty, both manmade and natural, proved to be a boon to filmmakers seeking to wow audiences with breathtaking visuals in the age before computers could create or edit them at will. While this fed into San Francisco’s local economy, the tourism generated by the places featured in the films spread throughout the country and in time the world. With its every natural wonder on display for the world to see, Tourism has become a nearly 100 billion dollar a year industry, with money from outside pouring throughout the state and feeding into economy as a whole. In fact, in a state that handles on fourth of all trade from the west coast and an intricate banking, transportation, bio-firm industry, Tourism is still the largest industry in the state.

Perhaps the second most famous area besides Hollywood is Silicone Valley. Despite its name, Silicone valley actually got its start before the invention of computers, with research into Radios and encryption being a large part of its foundation and especially useful to the military. With the invention of computers in the late 40’s and the development of modern semiconductors in the late 60’s, it truly took off as a headquarters for hardware development and software development; both the computers and programs that run our modern networks and the Internet.

The author lives in California and loves http://www.directsattv.com/directv/local/CA-California-Directv.html, camping, and horseback riding.