The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno is a particular church of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the western region (XI) of the Unite States, in the State of California. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Geographically, the diocese consists of 35,239 square miles of the Southern San Joaquin Valley of California, a portion of the Sierra Nevada and some eastern valleys. The diocese consists of all of the Counties of Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, and Tulare. The total population of the diocesan region is about 2.4 million inhabitants, of whom 581,000 were Catholic as of 2004. For administrative purposes the diocese is sub-divided into several deaneries: Fresno City, Fresno (rural), Hanford, Bakersfield, and Merced.