Cantua Creek, California
18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1923 and the latest in 1982. It stands in the San Joaquin-Tranquillity census division. It lies in ZIP code area 93608. The Survey maps it on the Cantua Creek quadrangle. 500 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 295 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1923 to 1982The same ground, surveyed 59 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Population over time
2 figuresCantua Creek grew from 466 to 500 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 466 | |
| 2020 | 500 | +34 (+7%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
11 surveys from 18 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1923 USGS Englebrecht Ranch quadrangle1:31680
- 1946 USGS Tranquillity quadrangle1:62500
- 1947 USGS Englebrecht Ranch quadrangle1:24000
- 1948 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Cantua Creek quadrangle1:24000, 5 printings
- 1957 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1965 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000
- 1974 USGS Monterey quadrangle1:250000
- 1982 USGS Mendota quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
53 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 53 fires within 5 miles of Cantua Creek between 1992 and 2020, burning about 492 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 29 |
| Debris and open burning | 9 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 8 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 4 |
| Natural | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Smoking | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 September 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | SAN DIEGO |
| 6 September 2007 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | S DERRICK BL /W KAMM AV |
| 5 September 2005 | Smoking | 1.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | CHEVRON |
| 29 September 1992 | Equipment and vehicle use | 6.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | CANTUA |
| 26 September 2009 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | MATEO |
| 19 September 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | MT. WHINTEY |
| 18 September 2003 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Fresno-Kings Unit | CAFKU11628 |
| 13 September 2005 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Fresno-Kings Unit | 5FKU010862 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
4 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cantua Creek in 4 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 3 flood, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2024 | Flood | Cantua Creek | - | California Highway Patrol reported flooding in the roadway near the acqueduct on Mount Whitney Ave. |
| January 2017 | Flood | Cantua Creek | - | California Highway Patrol reported Mt Whitney Avenue closed near Sonoma Avenue due to flooding west of Five Points. |
| May 1998 | Flood | Cantua Creek | - | Runoff from the western hills of Fresno County continued to plague area agriculture and cause local road hazards. Water from Arroyo Hondo flowed over Highway 33 south of Mendota and north of Interstate-5 but not to any great depth. |
| March 2006 | Funnel Cloud | Cantua Creek | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three Rocks | 4.0 miles | 17 | |
| Giffen Cantua Ranch | 4.4 miles | 23 | |
| Panoche Junction | 9.6 miles | 17 | |
| Levis | 9.7 miles | 17 | |
| San Joaquin | 9.9 miles | 15 | |
| Caldwell (historical) | 10.4 miles | 15 | |
| Tranquillity | 10.7 miles | 18 | |
| Fresno City (historical) | 11.4 miles | 18 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Cantua Creek | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q426066 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 220554. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.










