California is quite peculiar.  California has 482 municipalities.  Whether they call themselves cities or towns is local preference, although fewer than two dozen call themselves towns.  The largest municipality is Los Angeles with 3.7 million people.  The smallest is Vernon with 112 people.  I live in the unincorporated town of Cambria with a population of about 6000.  We are about 20 miles from the nearest city, but we have no local government at all.  The closest we have to a government is the community services district which runs the water district, the sewerage treatment plant and the fire department.<p>Cambria is in San Luisbo County which has an area of 3600 square miles and a population of over a quarter million but only 5 cities.  California has a law that makes in almost impossible for a new city to incorporate.  The new city must reimburse the county for any lost tax revenues caused by incorporation.  If your GPS reports a city some distance  away, it probably reporting the county seat of an unincorporated area.