Carmel Valley usually means the whole Carmel River watershed east of Highway 1, not only the small Carmel Valley Village. The Census Bureau treats it as a division of about 189 square miles with 6,189 people in 2020. Residents voted against incorporation in 2009.
The Esselen lived in the upper valley and the Rumsen from the middle valley to the river’s mouth. Governor Alvarado granted Rancho Los Laureles, covering the present-day valley, in 1839. The Pacific Improvement Company bought it in 1882.
Doris Day lived in the valley, and the Dennis the Menace cartoonist Hank Ketcham bought a ranch in the upper valley in the mid-1950s.