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The Emerald Triangle is a region in Northern California that derives its name from being the largest cannabis-producing region in the United States. The region includes three counties in an upside-down triangular configuration:
Growers have been cultivating cannabis in this region since the 1960s, during San Francisco's Summer of Love. Growing cannabis in the Emerald Triangle is considered a way of life, and the locals believe that everyone living in this region is either directly or indirectly reliant on the cannabis industry. The industry exploded in the region with the passage of California Proposition 215 (1996), which legalized the use of medical cannabis in California. The passage of Proposition 64 in 2016 legalized the general sale and distribution of cannabis.
In 1984, Humboldt residents filed a federal lawsuit claiming they had been subject to illegal surveillance by U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft deployed by the California-based multiagency task force started the year prior, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.
As of 2023, Humboldt County has the largest cannabis farming industry in the Emerald Triangle. While the largest legal pot farm in the county was , a 2021 survey found the median pot farm size to be .
In this sparsely populated region, the largest urban area is the city of Eureka in Humboldt County with a population approaching 27,000 people. The second and third largest cities, by far larger than any other cities in the region, are Arcata (also in Humboldt), with 17,231 people, and Ukiah (in Mendocino), with 16,075 people.
Homegrown is a 1998 movie starring Billy Bob Thornton that follows marijuana growers in an unspecific area of the Emerald Triangle, most likely northern Mendocino County.
On the TV show Lost, during flashback scenes in the episode "Further Instructions", John Locke picks up a hitchhiker who happens to be an undercover police officer on State Route 36 and brings him back to a farm near Bridgeville, where they grow marijuana in a greenhouse.
Humboldt County is a 2008 comedy-drama about a medical school dropout who drives north to Humboldt County to live on a pot farm.
In "Object Impermanence", an episode of Showtime's Weeds, Nancy Botwin drives to Heylia James' boobytrapped outdoor marijuana grow in Humboldt County.
Discovery Channel's ''[[Pot Cops]]'', a 2013 docuseries, followed the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office's Marijuana Enforcement Team in 2013.
The 2013 book by Emily Brady, is written about the marijuana industry in Humboldt County and the surrounding Emerald Triangle.
Welcome to Willits is a 2016 horror movie which takes place in the Emerald Triangle.
Amazon Prime's Budding Prospects was a 2017 pilot episode for a series based on the 1984 novel of the same name by T. C. Boyle that was set in Mendocino County in the 1980s. Amazon released the pilot but did not greenlight the series.
Two other nationally distributed paperback books written about marijuana cultivation in the Emerald Triangle include Steve Chapple's 1984 book Outlaws in Babylon: Shocking True Stories on the Marijuana Frontier and Ray Raphael's 1985 book Cash Crop: An American Dream.
Netflix's 2018 true crime television series Murder Mountain examines the high rate of missing people and murders in Humboldt County. The show covers the history of illegal marijuana farming including the relationship of local farmers and local authorities as the area attempts to transition into a legal cannabis industry.
The 2020 film Freeland is about a longtime Humboldt County marijuana grower, played by Krisha Fairchild, growing illegally despite the availability of the legal market.
The 2021 documentary Lady Buds, produced by Gravitas Ventures, about women who work in the marijuana industry in Northern California, is being developed into a scripted comedy feature film and a non-scripted series.
Hulu 2021 docuseries Sasquatch is based on the murder of pot growers in Mendocino County in the 1990s, purportedly perpetrated by Bigfoot.
The 2021 crime podcast Dark Woods, produced by Dick Wolf and set in Humboldt County that includes a trespass marijuana grow on public land, is currently being developed by Universal Television for a TV adaptation.
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