San Diego is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States, located along the Pacific Ocean on the West coast of the Western United States. The California Department of Finance's latest figures estimate the city's population at 1,336,865.The city of San Diego itself has deep canyons and hills separating its mesas, creating small pockets of natural parkland scattered throughout the city and thus giving San Diego a hilly geography. The same canyons give parts of the city a highly segmented feel, creating literal gaps between otherwise proximal neighborhoods and contributing to a low-density, car-centered built environment. Downtown San Diego is located on San Diego Bay. Balboa Park lies on a mesa to the northeast. It is surrounded by several dense urban communities and abruptly ends in Hillcrest to the north. The Coronado and Point Loma peninsulas separate San Diego Bay from the ocean. Ocean Beach is on the west side of Point Loma. Mission Beach and Pacific Beach lie between the ocean and Mission Bay, a man-made aquatic park. La Jolla, an affluent community, lies north of Pacific Beach and west of Mira Mesa. Mountains rise to the east of the city, and beyond the mountains are desert areas. Cleveland National Forest is a half-hour drive from downtown San Diego. Numerous farms are found in the valleys northeast and southeast of the city. San Diego County has one of the highest counts of animal and plant species that appear on the endangered species list among counties in the United States. 

San Diego County is broken into several geographic areas: North Coastal (Carlsbad, Oceanside, Encinitas, Cardiff, Solana Beach and Del Mar), Central Coastal (La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Misson Beach and Point Loma), Central Inland (Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Poway), North County Inland (Escondido, San Marcos), East County (La Mesa, El Cajon, Lakeside) and South County (or South Bay, Chula Vista, National City, San Ysidro). The examples are only a few of the town within each area.  

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