Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.
Looking west over the city from the Berkeley Hills, with San Francisco in the background
This pit in the surface of a rock at Indian Rock Park is typical of those used by the Ohlone people to grind acorns.
Berkeley and much of the East Bay was part of Rancho San Antonio, granted to the Peralta family in 1820.
Horses Grazing, Berkeley; painted by artist William Hahn in 1875
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
Aerial panorama of the northern Bay, the Bay Bridge, Golden Gate, and Marin Headlands on a clear morning. November 2014 photo by Doc Searls.
Panorama of San Francisco Bay, and the city skyline seen from Marin County in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Population density and low elevation coastal zones in San Francisco Bay (2010). The San Francisco Bay is especially vulnerable to sea level rise.