On Hwy-99, 113 miles South of Sacramento. When California’s spit-and-sawdust pioneer communities decided to join the civilized world, their wealthiest citizens clubbed together and financed huge courthouses to show that law and order was now being practiced. Merced was no exception, and the Italian Renaissance job raised in 1875 still forms a striking centrepiece to the town. Nowadays the dispensing of justice takes place elsewhere and within the courthouse’s simulated marble exterior lie the collections of the Merced County Museum – interesting enough for half an hour (www.mercedmuseum.org). In more recent years Latinos became a majority in the city, due to affordable housing and agricultural prosperity. It also has a large Asian-American community.