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On January 4, 1850, a committee of California's first constitutional convention, chaired by General Mariano Vallejo, recommended the creation of eighteen counties. They were Benicia, Butte, Fremont, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Monterey, Mt. Diablo, Oro, Redding, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Sutter.
Between January 4 and February 18, 1850, the California legislature added nine counties to the list recommended by General Vallejo's committee, some of the changes based on additional recommendations by the committee. The nine added counties were Branciforte, Calaveras, Coloma, Colusi, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Trinity, and Yuba. This brought the total number of counties to 27. The legislature also approved several name changes. Benicia was renamed El Dorado, Fremont was renamed Yola, Mt. Diablo was renamed Contra Costa, San Jose was renamed Santa Clara, Oro was renamed Tuolumne, and Redding was renamed Shasta.
Effective February 18, 1850, twenty-seven counties were created in California. The new counties were Branciforte, Butte, Calaveras, Colusi, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Los Angeles, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, Sutter, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yola, and Yuba.
In early 1850, not long after the legislature adopted its first statute creating counties, new statutes were adopted changing some county names. Branciforte was changed to Santa Cruz, Colusi was changed to Colusa, and Yola was changed to Yolo.
On September 9, 1850, California became the State of California with the same twenty-seven counties.
Of the original 27 counties, after 1850 only Marin neither added nor lost significant land to another county. Of the 32 California counties created after 1850, only seven counties neither added nor lost significant land to another county. The seven are Alameda, Alpine, Imperial, Madera, Modoc, Orange, and Riverside.
In addition to the substantial territorial changes listed, many small changes were made to boundaries. Several of these small changes were made at the time of the creation of new counties.
Original county boundaries often followed geographic features such as mountain ridges. In the middle of the last half of the nineteenth century many of these boundaries were changed slightly so that they now run along township lines and section lines.
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