Kensington is an unincorporated community and census designated place located in the Berkeley Hills, in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Contra Costa County, California. In the 20th century it was considered part of Berkeley, although it is across the county line. House numbers follow the pattern used in Berkeley, and Kensington shares two zip codes with the Berkeley Hills area.
Blake Garden, Kensington
Don Víctor Castro, a Californio ranchero and politician, owned the area where Kensington was founded, as part of his Rancho San Pablo.
Stein's pharmacy at Amherst and Arlington
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