San Luis Obispo County is located along the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast of the U.S. state of California. The county seat is San Luis Obispo, with about 46,000 residents. The county's distance from the large metro areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles has helped it to retain its rural character and reminders of old California. The mainstays of the economy are California Polytechnic State University with its 18,000 students, tourism, agriculture, wine grapes are the largest agricultural crop in the county. The county has a total area of 3,616 miČ,91% of it is land and 9% of it is water.