For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined the unincorporated community as a census-designated place (CDP).

Because lumber production, ranching activities and mercury mining increased in the area, the village adopted the more dignified[clarification needed] name of Cambria.

"[6][7][8] Forty-three years prior to that, the History of San Luis Obispo County and environs contains a similar account: The first name applied to the settlement was Slabtown.

[11] Although recorded history of the tribes in this region does not begin until the explorers and missionaries arrived, there is evidence of many tribal settlements in the area later known as Cambria.

Experts believe these tribes to have been migratory and used Cambria as a seasonal settlement; other scientists are convinced that they lived there permanently.

Most agree that they fed themselves with shellfish and seafood, as well as obtaining food from travels inland to hunt and gather seeds.

A variety of artistically-crafted implements have been discovered, including spears points and arrowheads made from obsidian; basalt, sandstone, and granite were used to make mortars and pestles; soapstone kettles and stone hammers were also found.

These early inhabitants were skilled basket and net makers and fashioned jewelry from crab claws, abalone shells, and the teeth of sharks and whales.

The Spanish explorers camped near the present site of the Coast Union High School, on Santa Rosa Creek, on September 10, 1769, and again on December 24–25, spending the first Christmas in what later became known as Cambria.

The Spanish soldiers named the site El Osito, because the local Chumash people offered them a young pet bear (which they politely refused).

[14] Cambria is located on the Rancho Santa Rosa Mexican land grant given in 1841 to Julian Estrada.

A devastating fire in 1889 virtually ended the mercury business and Cambria settled into a quiet dairy community.

[18] War affected Cambria when the 8,000 ton Union Oil tanker SS Montebello was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the early morning of 23 December 1941.

According to the captain, Olaf Eckstrom, these citizens of Cambria were real heroes: "God Bless 'em — they performed like American seamen, orderly, efficient, without hysteria.

"[19] The historic Old Santa Rosa Chapel, which was built in 1870, and as one of the oldest churches in the county of San Luis Obispo, held Catholic mass until 26 May 1963.

[21] According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 8.5 square miles (22 km2), all of it land.

Cambria has a warm-summer (csb) Mediterranean climate typical for the coastal regions of southern California, experiencing an Indian summer with the warmest days in August and September.

One visiting author described seeing "many impressive homes of highly imaginative design" and encouraged a casual tour of the residential district.

The Fiscalinis were pioneering Italian Swiss dairymen, who moved into the Cambria region in the 1880s; they acquired a number of dairy farms, including what they called the Town Ranch.

The Fiscalini family donated small plots of the Town Ranch as building sites for the Cambria public library, the Veterans Memorial, and a museum.

By the 1970s, the Fiscalini heirs, facing an inheritance tax of over one million dollars, sought a buyer, preferably a non-profit organization.

The Slab was deposited in an area of active subduction during the plate-tectonic assembly of today's coastal California.

The District also serves the communities of San Simeon to the north and Cayucos to the south (grades 9–12) as well as the surrounding rural areas.

[50] The community gets its water supply from wells that tap San Simeon and Santa Rosa creeks.

[51] The area is vulnerable to shortages due to the reliance on an unstable network of creeks, lakes and State Water Project allocations.

The Cambria Community Services District is building a treatment plant to treat brackish water and return it to the aquifer.

[52] The $9.13 million water treatment plant has critics who contend it will damage the delicate ecosystem, particularly San Simeon Creek lagoon, and burden ratepayers for years.