Sonora

State of northwestern Mexico, on the border of Arizona, USA, on the Gulf of California; area 182,052 sq km/70,290 sq mi; population (2000 est) 2,213,400. Its capital is Hermosillo. The main occupations are mining for silver, gold, lead, and zinc, and farming, producing sugar-cane, wheat, alfalfa, maize, tobacco, and rice.

Sonora

City and administrative headquarters of Tuolumne County, east-central California, just northeast of New Melones Reservoir and 80 km/50 mi east of Stockton, in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada; population (1990) 4,200. A former mining centre, it is today a residential and tourist location.

Situated on the Mother Lode (gold-bearing quartz vein along the west side of the Sierra Nevada), Sonora became the ‘Queen of the Southern Mines’ in the 1850s, booming along with nearby Columbia. Named by Mexican miners who retreated here from US hostility further north, it was in turn taken over by US miners by 1852. It later became an important timber centre.