California Counties
Complete list of all 58 counties in California with population, area, median income, and county seats — plus a free printable blank map.
Labeled outline map of California counties. Download a printable version in SVG, PNG, or PDF.
All 58 California counties
| County | County Seat | Population ▼ | Area | Median Income | Cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | — | 9,807,501 | 4,058 mi² | $93,039 | 133 |
| San Diego | — | 3,322,512 | 4,207 mi² | $110,517 | 52 |
| Orange | — | 3,138,331 | 791 mi² | $118,973 | 47 |
| Riverside | — | 2,482,806 | 7,206 mi² | $96,488 | 43 |
| San Bernardino | — | 2,188,912 | 20,057 mi² | $88,200 | 71 |
| Santa Clara | — | 1,926,381 | 1,290 mi² | $165,830 | 21 |
| Alameda | — | 1,668,635 | 739 mi² | $137,305 | 18 |
| Sacramento | — | 1,596,468 | 965 mi² | $95,773 | 24 |
| Contra Costa | — | 1,171,369 | 716 mi² | $137,257 | 31 |
| Fresno | — | 990,992 | 5,958 mi² | $77,621 | 36 |
| Kern | — | 907,936 | 8,132 mi² | $72,809 | 35 |
| Ventura | — | 847,255 | 1,843 mi² | $112,078 | 21 |
| San Francisco | — | 830,479 | 47 mi² | $144,153 | 1 |
| San Joaquin | — | 769,898 | 1,391 mi² | $94,801 | 16 |
| San Mateo | — | 713,109 | 448 mi² | $166,240 | 23 |
How many counties does California have?
California has 58 counties covering 155,779 square miles and roughly 39,286,484 residents. The state was admitted to the Union in 1850 as the 31st state, and the current county boundaries reflect more than a century of administrative subdivision.
The largest county by land area is San Bernardino County at 20,057 square miles, home to about 2,188,912 residents. The most populous is Los Angeles County with approximately 9,807,501 residents — a density of about 2,417 people per square mile.
At the other end of the scale, Sierra County has only about 3,154 residents.
California’s capital is Sacramento, while the largest city is Los Angeles — a common pattern in the United States, where many states placed their capitals in smaller, more central towns rather than their largest commercial hubs.
Related resources
Download a printable outline of California’s county boundaries from our blank map of California page — available in SVG, PNG, and PDF.
Use the What County Am I In? tool to detect which California county a GPS location or address falls in, or the Address to County Lookup for batch input.
For demographic radius analysis, the Find ZIP Codes in Radius and Population Within Radius tools let you draw a circle around any California address and see every ZIP code and the total population inside.
Two SimpleMapLab studies cover California specifically: the 100-mile radius around Sacramento measures how much of the state lives within 100 miles of its capitol, and the loneliest town in California ranks the state’s most isolated inhabited place. The county-counts blog post puts California’s 58 counties in national context.
Frequently asked questions
Population and demographics are aggregated from ZIP-code-level US Census data via the SimpleMaps dataset. Countiesboundaries are from the US Atlas TopoJSON build of the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line shapefiles. Land area is from the Census Gazetteer. State counts follow the US Census Bureau’s definition of counties and county-equivalents (50 states + DC = 3,143). All sources are public domain.