Sacramento Map
California's capital stands at the meeting of the Sacramento and American rivers, on ground so flood-prone that the city was physically raised — about 536,000 residents in 2024.
Where is Sacramento?
Sacramento is in northern California, at the top of the Central Valley where the delta begins. The Sierra foothills start about 30 miles east and the Coast Ranges close the valley to the west. It is roughly 90 miles northeast of San Francisco, about 130 miles west of Reno over Donner Pass, and some 170 miles north of Fresno down the valley.
Sacramento at a glance
| State | California |
| County | Sacramento County |
| Population | 535,798 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 35 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Pacific Time |
| Region | West (Pacific division) |
No. 35 on the 2024 list is a margin of 14,307 people: that is how far Sacramento trails Fresno, while Atlanta is 15,728 further back. Within California it comes sixth of fifteen, behind five others, from Los Angeles down to Fresno. Against California's 39.43 million residents, though, that is only about 1.4%. It holds about 33% of Sacramento County's 1,611,231 residents.
Sacramento in California
Sacramento is the seat of state government but only California's sixth largest city, behind Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco and Fresno. Sacramento County runs southwest into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a maze of islands and levees shown on the California county map. Stockton holds the delta's southern edge and Oakland and San Francisco lie past the Carquinez Strait. See the California state page and the US map with capitals.
Two rivers, levees and gold
Sutter's Fort was placed near the confluence in 1839, and the discovery of gold in the American River at Coloma, 45 miles upstream, turned the landing into a city almost overnight. Hydraulic mining then washed so much debris down out of the Sierra Nevada that riverbeds rose and flooding worsened; after repeated inundations the city jacked its downtown buildings up a full story and filled the streets beneath them in the 1860s. Levees and bypass channels have carried the job on since. A deep water ship channel links the port to San Francisco Bay and the Pacific coast.
Cities near Sacramento
Nearby cities include Stockton, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and Reno. The Pacific division page puts California with its coastal neighbors.