Madera County, California in the context of "Monache"

Yosemite National Park (/joʊˈsɛmɪti/ yoh-SEM-ih-tee) is a national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by the Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 1,187 sq mi (3,070 km) in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, groves of giant sequoia, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Its geology is characterized by granite and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and tilted to form its unique slopes, which increased the steepness of stream and river beds, forming deep, narrow canyons. About one million years ago, glaciers formed at higher elevations. They moved downslope, cutting and sculpting the U-shaped Yosemite Valley.

Mammoth Mountain is a lava dome complex partially located in the town of Mammoth Lakes, California, in the Inyo National Forest of Madera and Mono counties. It is home to a large ski area primarily on the Mono County side.

Mammoth Mountain was formed in a series of eruptions that ended 57,000 years ago. Mammoth Mountain still produces hazardous volcanic gases that kill trees.

The San Joaquin Valley (/ˌsæn hwɑːˈkiːn/ SAN whah-KEEN; Spanish: Valle de San Joaquín) is the southern half of California's Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an important source of food, producing a significant part of California's agricultural output.

San Joaquin Valley draws from nine counties of Northern and Central California, including all of San Joaquin and Kings counties, most of Stanislaus, Merced, and Fresno counties, and parts of Madera and Tulare counties, along with a majority of Kern County. Although the valley is predominantly rural, it has four densely populated urban centers: Stockton/Modesto, Fresno, Porterville/Visalia, and Bakersfield.

The Red Cones are a pair of cinder cones near Devils Postpile National Monument, in eastern Madera County of central California. They are within the eastern Sierra Nevada and Inyo National Forest.

State Route 41 (SR 41) is a state highway in the U.S. State of California, connecting the Central Coast with the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada. Its southern terminus is at the Cabrillo Highway (SR 1) in Morro Bay, and its northern terminus is in Yosemite National Park. It has been constructed as an expressway from near SR 198 in Lemoore north to the south part of Fresno, where the Yosemite Freeway begins, passing along the east side of downtown and extending north into Madera County. Though maps and signs may show the highway extending north inside Yosemite National Park from its entrance to Yosemite Valley, this segment is federally maintained and is not included in the state route logs.

Metropolitan Fresno, officially Fresno–Hanford–Corcoran, CA CSA, is a metropolitan area in the San Joaquin Valley, in the United States, consisting of Fresno and Madera counties. It is the third-largest metropolitan region in Northern California, behind the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Sacramento. It is also the 49th-largest CSA in the U.S. as of 2010 census.

Metropolitan Fresno is anchored by Fresno, the fifth-largest city in California and the 34th-largest in the United States. The metropolitan area is located in the Central Valley, which is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. It has a large agricultural economy despite being increasingly urbanized. In more recent years, statewide droughts in California have further strained both the Fresno metropolitan area's and the entire Central Valley's water security.