San Bernardino, << SAN buhr nuhr DEE noh or SAN buhr nuh DEE noh >> (pop. 222,101), a city in southwestern California, is the seat of San Bernardino County. The county is one of the largest counties in area in the United States. It occupies more than 20,000 square miles (51,800 square kilometers). With adjoining Riverside County, San Bernardino County forms a trading center called the Inland Empire. These two counties make up the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area (pop. 4,599,839). Several U.S. military bases lie fully or partly in San Bernardino County.
The city of San Bernardino lies at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains. Nearby San Gorgonio Mountain, which rises 11,499 feet (3,505 meters), is the highest place in southern California. Spanish settlers founded San Bernardino in 1810. The city was incorporated in 1854. It was once California’s center for citrus growing. Today, the area’s chief agricultural products are cattle, eggs, and milk. Wholesale trade and manufacturing are the largest private industries. The city is the home of California State University at San Bernardino. San Bernardino has a mayor-council-manager government.
San Bernardino became the subject of widespread attention on Dec. 2, 2015, when a mass shooting occurred at a social services center in the city. Two assailants killed 14 people and wounded many others before being killed by police. In the weeks after the attack, authorities conducting an investigation into the case explored evidence suggesting that the shooters had held sympathies with international Islamic terrorist organizations.
