What is the population of Blythe, California?

Blythe has a population of approximately 17,396 according to the latest available open data.

Where is Blythe, California located?

Blythe is located in California, United States, at approximate coordinates 33.6535°, -114.6218°.

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Blythe

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Blythe

Total population

17,396

Elevation83 m

Land area69.86 km²

Weather81°F · Cloudy then Slight Chance Showers And Thunderstorms

Coordinates33.65°, -114.62°

Demographic figures from US Census Bureau · ACS 5-year estimates. Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.

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City facts

Elevation

83 m

Area

69.86 km²

Official website

www.cityofblythe.ca.gov

Facts from Wikidata (CC0).

Overview

Blythe is a city in eastern Riverside County, California, United States. It is in the Palo Verde Valley of the Lower Colorado River Valley region, an agricultural area and part of the Colorado Desert along the Colorado River, approximately 224 miles (360 km) east of Los Angeles and 150 miles (240 km) west of Phoenix. Blythe was named after Thomas Henry Blythe, a San Francisco financier, who established primary water rights to the Colorado River in the region in 1877. The city was incorporated on July 21, 1916. The population was 18,317 at the 2020 census.

History & geography

History

Native Americans lived in the area. Blythe was named after Thomas Henry Blythe, a San Francisco businessman and entrepreneur. Blythe established primary water rights to the Colorado River in the southwestern California region in 1877. The town was originally named Blythe City, by Thomas Blythe, but the name was shortened to simply Blythe around the time the first post office was opened in 1908. In the early or mid-1870s, William Calloway (known as Oliver Calloway in some sources), an engineer and a former captain of the 1st California Infantry Regiment, explored an area across the Colorado River from Ehrenberg, Arizona, and found its potential for development. Calloway made preliminary surveys and filed land claims under the Swamp Land Act of 1850. He interested the wealthy San Francisco capitalist Thomas Henry Blythe (originally born Thomas Williams in Mold, Wales) to undertake development and settlement of an "empire" located next to the Colorado. Together they purchased a total of 140,000 acres under the Swamp Land Act, and another 35,000 acres under the Desert Land Act of 1877. On July 17, 1877, Blythe filed his first claim for Colorado River water on what was to become the "Blythe Intake". Blythe appointed another man named George Irish as manager to assist Calloway in building an irrigation system. Calloway died in a Chemehuevi attack on March 28, 1880, and was replaced by C.C. Miller, the father of Frank Augustus Miller. Thomas Blythe died on April 4, 1883; his only revisit to the valley was in November 1882. After his death, the work in the valley halted and Blythe's estate subsequently went into litigation between his illegitimate daughter Florence and other claimants, the trial beginning in 1889. In the 1900s, Florence was awarded the estate, after…

Geography

Blythe is located near the California/Arizona border in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert, at the junction of Interstate 10 and US 95. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (2.9%) is water. Nearby communities include Vidal to the north, Ripley to the south, Desert Center to the west, and Ehrenberg, Arizona, to the east. Major cities in the region include Yuma (85 miles), Indio (95 miles), Phoenix (150 miles), San Bernardino (170 miles), Riverside (172 miles), and Las Vegas (200 miles). Blythe is within 4 hours via car of 10% of the United States' population. Blythe has a hot desert climate, featuring extremely hot summers and mild winters. There are an average of 179.3 days with highs of or higher. There are an average of 3.1 days with lows of or lower. Until 2016, the record high temperature was on July 7, 1920, and June 24, 1929. But on June 20, 2016, that long-standing record was shattered when Blythe reached . The record low temperature was on January 8, 1971. There are an average of 17.9 days with measurable precipitation. The wettest year was 1992 with and the driest year was 1950 with . The most rainfall in one month was in August 1951, which included the 24-hour record rainfall of on August 26. |source 2 = National Weather Service }} Despite California's reputation for earthquakes, according to geologists Blythe has not had an earthquake centered in the city for over 500,000 years.

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