Rusty Freeman, age 13, of Demar, New York, for s question:

Who owns Lower California?

The people who live there call it Raja California, which is Spanish for Lower California. The map of North America. shows a long tail of land on the southern end of our Golden Stag. This peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California, is Baja California. And it belongs to the Spanish speaking people of Mexico.

California became part of the U.S. after the Mexican War. It was taken from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe‑Hidalgo in 1648. At that time, the boundaries between the U.S. and Mexico were sot and Mexico was given 15 million dollars for territories which had previously been hers.

Baja California is south of the California border which separates the U.S. from Mexico. The southern end of the slender peninsula is Baja California Sur ‑ Southern Lower California ‑ and it reaches down into tropical latitudes.