Cal. GOV § 172
This is the official text of Cal. GOV § 172, part of California’s Government Code — covers the structure and operation of state and local government, including public employment and public records.
Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.
Official statutory text
The reference in Section 1 of Article XV of the Constitution to “the navigable waters of this State,” the reference in Section 2 of the same article to “a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State,” and the reference in Section 3 of the same article to “the waters of any harbor, estuary, bay or inlet used for the purposes of navigation,” are declared to include and to have included in the past all of the waters within lines drawn from headland to headland across the mouth of each of the bays, inlets and estuaries along the coast of the mainland and along the coast of and across the waters between the islands of the State, regardless of the length of such lines, such waters being inland waters of the State.
Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site
Need a lawyer in California?
Find a California lawyer
About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the
Open US Law dataset
(Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine
(Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.