North Edwards is a census-designated place in eastern Kern County, California, in the Mojave Desert, about seven miles northeast of Edwards Air Force Base and at an elevation of roughly 2,300 feet. It is one of several small desert communities in this corner of the county, closely tied to the base and to the neighboring town of Boron. Its location in the high desert gives it wide-open skies, sparse vegetation, and dramatic distances to the surrounding mountain ranges. The community took shape in the mid-twentieth century. During the 1950s, a series of desert subdivisions brought residents to the area, and by 1960 more than a thousand people were living in a handful of subdivisions. The community was named North Edwards in 1958 and adopted in 1961, and in 1963 the Kern County Planning Commission formally recognized it as a town. Its early growth included the consolidation of local water companies and the construction of a shopping center in the late 1950s. Today North Edwards remains a small, quiet place, with a population of fewer than a thousand residents. Its streets are laid out in a simple grid, and its housing is predominantly modest single-family homes. The economy and daily life revolve around Edwards Air Force Base and the regional services in Boron and the larger Antelope Valley cities to the west. The Muroc Joint Unified School District, which serves Boron, North Edwards, and Edwards Air Force Base, is headquartered here, making the community a small educational anchor for the area. North Edwards is remote by California standards, a community defined by the desert environment and the aerospace presence next door. It offers inexpensive, low-density living with clear views and a tight-knit small-town feel, at the cost of a longer drive to larger employment and shopping centers.