Fairfax, CA (CDP)

Fairfax is a Kern County census-designated place just outside Bakersfield, at the city's southeast edge. This is the Fairfax CDP, separate from the incorporated Marin County town that shares its name. The 2020 Census counted 1,879 residents. Fairfax School District was formed in 1891 to serve a sparsely populated area on Bakersfield's eastern fringe; today it operates three elementary schools and one junior high. Those campuses are the clearest civic institutions within the community. The district's founding predates the present edge-of-city landscape.

Fairfax Road connects the district's campuses with southeast Bakersfield, and Fairfax Elementary School and Fairfax Junior High appear in the county's current school listings. Surrounding planning documents identify agricultural zoning and California Water Service and Kern Sanitation Authority systems in the area. Fairfax has an edge-of-Bakersfield shape, with a longstanding elementary district serving a community now tied closely to the city's south-side geography. Its local map is made from school grounds, utility systems, county roads, and the larger Bakersfield services just beyond the CDP.