Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California Metropolitan statistical area. The county spans the southern end of the Central Valley. Covering 8,161.42 square miles (21,138.0 km2), it ranges west to the southern slope of the Coast Ranges, and east beyond the southern slope of the eastern Sierra Nevada into the Mojave Desert, at the city of Ridgecrest. Its northernmost city is Delano[citation needed] and its southern reach expands just beyond Lebec to Grapevine and the northern tip of the parallel Antelope Valley.