THE TULARE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Southern Sierran Foothills setting.
Tulare County has 4,823.9 square miles of land in California. 14 mapped landscape regions meet across Tulare County: Southern Sierran Foothills, Granitic Alluvial Fans and Terraces, Southern Sierra Upper Montane Forests, among others.
Oak woodland, chaparral and grassland occupy foothills and low coastal mountains around the Central Valley. Narrow agricultural valleys interrupt this landscape of dry summers and wetter winters.
Regional context: Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Tulare County intersects 14 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Southern Sierran Foothills18.2%
- Granitic Alluvial Fans and Terraces16.8%
- Southern Sierra Upper Montane Forests12.6%
- Southern Sierra Mid-Montane Forests11%
- Southern Sierra Lower Montane Forest and Woodland9.4%
Central California Valley in Tulare County
The Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems occupy broad sediment-filled basins, with fans and terraces toward the valley margins. These nearly level landscapes contrast with California's surrounding hills and mountains.
Read the regional source ↗Sierra Nevada in Tulare County
A high mountain block slopes west toward California's Central Valley and drops sharply on its eastern side. Granite landscapes, glacial basins and elevation-dependent conifer forests are prominent regional features.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Tulare County
The atlas lists 70 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Tulare County, including Visalia, Three Rivers, Tulare. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Tulare County by land and water
The Census records 14.4 square miles of water within Tulare County, or 0.3% of its total area. That share is close to Tulare County’s 0.3%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Tulare County has 3,175.7 times the land area of nearby Springville CDP (1.52 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Fresno County, Inyo County, Kern County, Kings County within California. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

