Manzanar National Historic Site, located in the southern Owens Valley of eastern California, commemorates the internment beginning in 1942 of Japanese Americans during World War II. The area from Manzanar south through the Alabama Hills to Lone Pine with the highest part of the Sierra Nevada as a backdrop is one of the most popular film-making locations in the world, and now hosts the Lone Pine Film Festival every October.

Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site, in Danville, commemorates the only Nobel Prize winning playwright from the United States and the architect of modern American theater.

One of the country's earliest crusaders for national parks is remembered in two parks in California. John Muir National Historic Site, in Martinez, preserves the mansion where the naturalist lived. Also recognizing the explorer is Muir Woods National Monument, in Marin County, a peaceful grove of coastal redwoods.

Most of the other larger national forests in California lie in the northern and northeastern parts of the state. Shasta-Trinity national forest, in northern California, lies in a volcanic area culminating in the beautiful snowcapped Mount Shasta. In the northern coastal uplands is Six Rivers National Forest, noted for its groves of redwoods. Extending across the Sierra Nevada along California's eastern border are Plumas, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus, and Inyo national forests. Sierra National Forest, in the Sierra Nevada region, preserves stands of giant sequoias.

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