Vice President-elect Kamala Harris thanks Californians after resigning from her Senate seat

US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who resigned from her Senate seat on Monday, has described herself as "a proud daughter of California" and thanked the people of America's most populous state for their support.

Ahead of her swearing-in on Wednesday, Harris officially resigned from her Senate seat, ending her four-year innings in the upper chamber of the United States Congress.

Harris served as a United States senator from California from 2017 until 2021, and as attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017.

"It has been such an honour to serve with a team that has worked so tirelessly," Harris, 56, said in a video message as she sat in front of a framed photo of her and President-elect Joe Biden.

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She spoke about the things achieved in her four years of office in both responding to the needs of the people of California directly and bipartisan work aimed at servicing the nation.

"These are some of the things that we have done over the course of my four years and you gave me the honour of being able to serve," she said.

"Of course, I'm not saying goodbye. In many ways, I'm now saying hello as your vice president,” Harris said.

"But I do want to thank you, for the honour of representing the place of my birth, as a proud Daughter of California. Thank you," she added.

On Wednesday she will be the first woman US vice president, the first African-American woman vice president, the first Indian-American and the first Asian-American vice president.

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Harris started fighting for working families in California's Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where she focused on prosecuting child sexual assault cases.

From there, she became the first Black woman elected as San Francisco’s District Attorney.

In 2010, Harris became the first Black woman to be elected Attorney General of California, overseeing the country’s second-largest Justice Department after the US Department of Justice.

When Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden picked Harris in August last year as his running mate, the then California Senator was just the third woman to be selected as the vice president on a major party ticket.

Harris was born to two immigrant parents: a Black father and an Indian mother. Her father, Donald Harris, was from Jamaica, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who immigrated to the US from Chennai in 1958. Harris defines herself simply as 'American'.