The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a 1,022-acre (4.1 km2) site in Santa Barbara, California, 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles. Founded in 1905 as an independent teachers' college, UCSB joined the University of California system in 1944 and is the third-oldest general-education campus in the system.