Chualar (Spanish for "Pigweed grove") is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in the Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California, United States.

Chualar is located 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Salinas,[6] at an elevation of 115 feet (35 m).

[4] U.S. Route 101 runs along the southwest side of the community, leading northwest to Salinas and southeast 16 miles (26 km) to Soledad.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 0.6 square miles (1.6 km2), all of it land.

[3] In her Spanish and Indian Place Names of California (1914), Sanchez states that chualar was the indigenous word for an abundant and native goosefoot.

In his 1500 California Place Names (1998), William Bright writes that the name is Spanish for "where the chual grows," chual being Mexican Spanish for pigweed or goosefoot, and derived ultimately from Nahuatl tzoalli.

[6] At a railroad crossing about one mile south of town, a bus carrying Mexican migrant workers collided with a train in September 1963, killing 32 passengers and injuring 25.

It was the most serious road accident in U.S. history, and helped spur the abolition of the bracero guest worker program.

[citation needed] The 2010 United States Census[26] reported that Chualar had a population of 1,190.

There were 251 housing units at an average density of 400.9 per square mile (154.8/km2), of which 112 (45.7%) were owner-occupied, and 133 (54.3%) were occupied by renters.