San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of the San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water channel approximately in the middle of the bay, which allows access to major ports in Sacramento, Stockton, Benicia, and Martinez; and other smaller ports on the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta.
Suisun Bay (/səˈsuːn/ sə-SOON; Wintun for "where the west wind blows") is a shallow tidal estuary (a northeastern extension of the San Francisco Bay) in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the entrance to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta. To the west, Suisun Bay is drained by the Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay. Grizzly Bay forms a northern extension of Suisun Bay. Suisun Bay is between Contra Costa County to the south and Solano County to the north.
The bay was named in 1811 after the Suisunes, a Patwin tribe of Wintun people.
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments defines the Bay Area as including the nine counties that border the estuaries of San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties which are not officially part of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the Central Coast counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey, or the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, prominent universities, technology companies, and affluence. The Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Bay Area dates back to 8000–10,000 BC. The oral tradition of the Ohlone and Miwok people suggests they have been living in the Bay Area for several hundreds if not thousands of years. The Spanish empire claimed the area beginning in the early period of Spanish colonization of the Americas. The earliest Spanish exploration of the Bay Area took place in 1769. The Mexican government controlled the area from 1821 until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Also in 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold in nearby mountains, resulting in explosive immigration to the area and the precipitous decline of the Native population. The California gold rush brought rapid growth to San Francisco. California was admitted as the 31st state in 1850. A major earthquake and fire leveled much of San Francisco in 1906. During World War II, the Bay Area played a major role in America's war effort in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, with the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, of which Fort Mason was one of 14 installations and location of the headquarters, acting as a primary embarkation point for American forces. Since then, the Bay Area has experienced numerous political, cultural, and artistic movements, developing unique local genres in music and art and establishing itself as a hotbed of progressive politics. The postwar Bay Area saw large growth in the financial and technology industries, creating an economy with a gross domestic product of over $700 billion. In 2018 it was home to the third-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the United States.
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California. Water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and from the Sierra Nevada mountains, flow into Suisun Bay, which then travels through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. It then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called San Francisco Bay. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2013, and the Port of Oakland on the bay is one of the busiest cargo ports on the west coast.
Napa County (/ˈnæpə/ ) is a county north of San Pablo Bay located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 138,019. The county seat is the City of Napa. Napa County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county's territory were given to Lake County in 1861.
Napa County comprises the Napa, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area. It is one of four North Bay counties.
The Carquinez Strait (/kɑːrˈkiːnəs/; Spanish: Estrecho de Carquinez) is a narrow tidal strait located in the Bay Area of Northern California, United States. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay. The strait is eight miles (13 km) long and connects Suisun Bay, which receives the waters of the combined rivers, with San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of the San Francisco Bay.
The strait formed in prehistoric times, near the close of one of the past ice ages, when the Central Valley was a vast inland lake. Melting ice from the Sierra Nevada raised the water level while seismic activity created a new outlet to the Pacific Ocean, draining the lake into the ocean and exposing the valley floors.
The Napa River is a river approximately 55 miles (89 km) long in the U.S. state of California. It drains a famous wine-growing region called the Napa Valley, in the mountains north of the San Francisco Bay. Milliken Creek and Mt. Veeder watersheds are a few of its many tributaries. The river mouth is at Vallejo, where the intertidal zone of fresh and salt waters flow into the Carquinez Strait and the San Pablo Bay.
37°42′N 122°00′W / 37.7°N 122°W
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. With a population of roughly 2.8 million in 2024, it is the most populous subregion in the Bay Area, containing the second- and third-most populous Bay Area counties of Alameda (1.7 million) and Contra Costa (1.1 million).
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city became a municipal corporation on August 3, 1905, and has a city council. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay region, Richmond borders San Pablo, California, Albany, California, El Cerrito, California and Pinole, California in addition to the unincorporated communities of North Richmond, California, Hasford Heights, Kensington, California, El Sobrante, Contra Costa County, California, Bayview-Montalvin Manor, Tara Hills, California, and East Richmond Heights, California, and for a short distance San Francisco on Red Rock Island in the San Francisco Bay.
Richmond is one of two cities, the other being San Rafael, California, that sits on the shores of both San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. Its population was 116,448 as of the 2020 United States census making it the second largest city in the United States named Richmond after Richmond, Virginia.