California is kinda bigger than Germany...
It depends what you mean by "bigger" Kevin.
Germany is 137,847 sq mi and 81,757,600 people.
California is 163,696 sq mi and 36,961,664 people.
So California may be ~20% or so larger geographically, but Germany has more than twice as many people.
Also the population of California is spread out more than in Germany...