Soledad, California
20 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1915 and the latest in 1982. It stands in the Soledad census division. It lies in ZIP code area 93960. It stands on Arroyo Seco. The Survey maps it on the Soledad quadrangle. 24,925 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 190 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1915 to 1982The same ground, surveyed 67 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Compare 1915 against another survey:
On record in Soledad
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 2 records
- Los Coches Rancholisted 1979
- Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad Historic Districtlisted 2014
Population over time
2 figuresSoledad fell from 25,738 to 24,925 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 | 25,738 | |
| 2020 | 24,925 | -813 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
10 surveys from 20 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.
- 1915 USGS Soledad quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
- 1940 USGS Soledad quadrangle1:62500
- 1948 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Santa Cruz quadrangle1:250000
- 1955 USGS Soledad quadrangle1:24000, 4 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 Point Sur quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
Fires near this place
227 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 227 fires within 5 miles of Soledad between 1993 and 2020, burning about 15,820 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 16 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 | 130 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 35 |
| Debris and open burning | 17 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 17 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 16 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 9 |
| Smoking | 2 |
| Natural | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | San Benito-Monterey Unit | METZ RD SOLEDAD_CITY |
| 9 September 1993 | Equipment and vehicle use | 4.1 acres | San Benito-Monterey Unit | ELAM |
| 8 September 2012 | Misuse of fire by a minor | under an acre | San Benito-Monterey Unit | ENCINAL |
| 6 September 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 2.0 acres | San Benito-Monterey Unit | SOLEDAD HIGH SCHOOL SOLED |
| 5 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | San Benito-Monterey Unit | MISSION WY SOLEDAD_CITY |
| 5 September 2013 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | San Benito-Monterey Unit | ARROYO |
| 4 September 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5.0 acres | San Benito-Monterey Unit | GOMEZ PL / SERRANO PL |
| 30 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | San Benito-Monterey Unit | METZ RD SOLEDAD |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Soledad: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stonewall Canyon Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Stonewall Canyon Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer |
Storms near this place
2 since 2021Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Soledad in 2 storm reports in 2021: 1 hail, 1 flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2021 | Hail | Soledad | - | Small hail reported in Soledad via social media. |
| January 2021 | Flood | Soledad | - | US-101 N closed from Front St to Front St SB off ramp due to flooding. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Romie | 2.0 miles | 20 | |
| Camphora | 3.1 miles | 20 | |
| Harlem | 4.2 miles | 20 | |
| Molus | 4.7 miles | 22 | |
| Metz | 7.8 miles | 26 | |
| Greenfield | 8.4 miles | 26 | |
| Gonzales | 8.4 miles | 24 | |
| Dean | 9.8 miles | 24 |
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 Soledad | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q985256 | 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 1661463. 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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.









