Santa Barbara

Long before Europeans arrived, the coast here was Chumash country. At least 25,000 Chumash lived in the region before Spanish contact, and five villages stood in what is now the city; a mound on Mason Street is thought to be the site of the village of Syujton, recorded by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Spanish soldiers and missionaries under Felipe de Neve arrived in 1782 and built the Presidio, the last military outpost Spain founded in its American colonies, and the mission followed on the feast of Saint Barbara, 4 December 1786. Livestock, epidemics and military force left the Chumash little choice but to join the mission system.

After Mexican independence in 1821 the missions were secularised and their lands divided into great cattle ranchos. John C. Frémont took the town for the United States on 27 December 1846, during the Mexican–American War. Stearns Wharf, completed in 1872, and the railway link to Los Angeles, completed in 1887, opened Santa Barbara to visitors. On 29 June 1925 a magnitude 6.3 earthquake damaged much of downtown and killed 13 people. City leaders used the rebuilding to encourage a unified Spanish Colonial Revival style through design guidelines, and the courthouse, finished in 1929, became its showpiece.

After the Second World War the university campus nearby became a major employer, and in 1975 the city limited future density to protect its water supply and character — a decision that kept sprawl out but made housing scarce and expensive. Fire is a recurring threat: the Tea Fire of 2008 and the Jesusita Fire of 2009 destroyed hundreds of homes in the foothills, and the Thomas Fire of December 2017, the most damaging in the county's history, was followed in January 2018 by mudflows in neighbouring Montecito that killed 23 people.

Santa Barbara's look is its culture. Red-tile roofs, white walls, arcades and tiled courtyards were encouraged by design guidelines adopted after 1925, and the result is a strikingly unified townscape, centred on the courthouse with its painted Mural Room and on the mission, still run by the Franciscans. The city's Spanish and Mexican past is celebrated every August at the Fiesta, or Old Spanish Days, begun in the 1920s, with parades, flamenco and mariachi music around town.

Hispanic or Latino residents make up almost two-fifths of the population, and the Eastside around Milpas Street is the centre of that community. The arts are well supported for a city of its size: the Arlington Theatre, with about 2,000 seats, hosts the Santa Barbara International Film Festival each winter; the restored Granada Theatre and the outdoor Santa Barbara Bowl hold concerts; and the Music Academy of the West in Montecito runs a summer music festival. The Summer Solstice Parade, started in 1974, fills State Street with home-made floats and costumes, and on Memorial Day weekend chalk artists cover the paving in front of the mission for I Madonnari.

The university gives the area a young, outdoor-minded population of students, surfers, cyclists and hikers, alongside a large retired and wealthy community in Montecito and Hope Ranch. Wine is part of local identity too, from the tasting rooms of the Funk Zone to the vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley over the mountains.

About 89,000 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, with more in neighbouring Goleta, Montecito and Carpinteria along the same narrow coastal strip. The city covers an unusual shape: a thin corridor of city limits runs out under the sea and back inland so that the airport, beside UCSB near Goleta, sits within its boundary.

Tourism brings more than a billion dollars a year into the local economy, but in the county as a whole government is the largest employer, followed by private education and healthcare, then leisure and hospitality. UCSB, Santa Barbara City College and Westmont College give the area a large student population. Housing is the constant issue: growth limits, high demand from second-home buyers and retirees, and little land between the mountains and the sea have pushed prices far beyond what most residents can afford — in 2006 only six per cent could afford a median-value house.

Daily life is relaxed and outdoors — morning walks and runs along the waterfront path, surfing at the local breaks, hiking in the foothills, the farmers' market downtown — and residents are well aware of living with fire, drought and the risk of mudflows. The Riviera's hillside houses and Montecito's estates contrast with the busier, more crowded streets of the Eastside and Westside.

Santa Barbara cooks with what is near at hand: fresh produce from farms within a few hundred miles, sold at the downtown farmers' market, and seafood landed in the harbour, including sea urchins whose roe, uni, was once shipped almost entirely to Japan and is now eaten locally. Seafood restaurants stand on Stearns Wharf and around the harbour.

Mexican food is everyday food. The Eastside, around Milpas Street, has a great many taquerías and Mexican restaurants, from small counters making tacos to order to family restaurants serving seafood enchiladas, including La Super-Rica Taqueria, said to have been a favourite of Julia Child. The Central Coast tradition of Santa Maria-style barbecue — tri-tip beef grilled over oak — turns up as tri-tip sandwiches. A less expected local claim: the Egg McMuffin was invented at the McDonald's on upper State Street.

Wine is the region's best-known product. Pinot Noir and, to a lesser extent, Chardonnay are the signature varieties of Santa Barbara County, grown in the cooler valleys north of the mountains, and the Funk Zone has many tasting rooms within a few blocks of the beach. Craft breweries and small distilleries have joined them in the old industrial buildings, and the autumn harvest is the busiest season in the vineyards.