Carson

City in Los Angeles County, southwest California, 16km/10mi south of Los Angeles; population (1990) 84,000. Oil was discovered here in 1923 and industries include oil refining, chemicals, electronics, vehicle manufacture, and the production of aerospace equipment. Dominguez Hills, one of 20 campuses of California State University, the largest state-supported system of higher education in the United States, is here.

In 1782, Juan José Dominguez was granted land in this area and set up a ranch; the city is named after George H Carson (1829–1901), who married one of the descendants of Dominguez.

Carson

River flowing through northeastern California and western Nevada, USA; length about 275 km/170 mi. Its East and West forks rise on the east of the Carson Range of the Sierra Nevada and meet east of Lake Tahoe, near Genoa. It flows past Carson City and is impounded by the Lahontan Dam (1915), which creates the 37-km/23-mi-long Lahontan Reservoir. The river disappears into the shallow, marshy southern end of the Carson Sink. Since the construction of the dam, the Carson has been central to agriculture in northwestern Nevada.

The dam is named after the glacial Lake Lahontan, which covered much of northwestern Nevada and northeastern California, and whose remnants include the Black Rock Desert and Pyramid and Walker lakes. The Carson Sink is another remnant.