Whether you’re a longtime local, or still getting acquainted with the sunny city, check out our list of San Diego facts you might not be familiar with:

HISTORY:

• Founded in the 16th century, San Diego is California’s oldest city
• The first European to visit the site of present day San Diego was Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, sailing under the flag of Spain
• San Diego has hosted two World's Fairs, one in 1915 and one in 1935
• Balboa Park was named after the Spanish explorer, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and was founded in 1868

POP CULTURE:

• San Diego's Java Joe's and Innerchange Coffeehouse is where folk “soul” singer
  Jewel was discovered
• Annette Bening grew up here, and it is also the home town of fellow actors Cameron
  Diaz, Robert Duvall, Ted Danson, Adam Brody, Mario Lopez, and Nick Cannon
• Hollywood loves to work in San Diego. A small sampling of the movies filmed or partially shot here include: Almost Famous, Anchor Man, Bring it On, The Scorpion King, Some Like it Hot, Spaceballs, Top Gun, and Traffic.

ECONOMY & AGRICULTURE:

• Due to its popularity, San Diego’s median house prices more than tripled between 1998 and 2007
• Fallbrook, located in Northern San Diego County, is the Avocado Capital of the world; there are more avocados grown here than anywhere else in the United States
• San Diego was known as the “Tuna Capital of the World” from the 1930s until the
  1970s, because more than 40,000 people were employed by the industry
• San Diego is the “Golf Capital of the World” with more golf equipment manufacturing produced here than in any other city

ADDITIONAL FUN FACTS:

• The first baby panda in the Western Hemisphere was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1990
• The man who made the Golden Arches of McDonalds our nation's fast food choice, Ray Kroc, made San Diego his home. San Diego is also the home town of Jack in the Box, which first opened in 1951 and offered 18-cent hamburgers
• San Diego’s Hotel Del Coronado, known for its Victorian-era decor and architecture, is the largest wooden structure in the United States