Monterey, California

Monterey is a coastal city on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast of California in the United States. It lies in Monterey County, covers a land area of about 22.4 square kilometres and recorded 30,218 residents in the 2020 census. The Spanish established the Presidio of Monterey and a mission cathedral here in 1770, and the town became the administrative and military headquarters of Alta California and Baja California and the only official port of entry for the province. It stayed the capital under Mexican rule and was seized by American forces in the Battle of Monterey in 1846; it then served as the capital of the interim American government until 1849 and hosted California's first Constitutional Convention. In the late nineteenth century an art colony grew up around the town. Today it is a tourist destination known for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Cannery Row, Fisherman's Wharf and the Monterey Jazz Festival, and it hosts the Defense Language Institute and the Naval Postgraduate School.