page_title: Sonoma County, California
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Sonoma County, California / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographer: Self Subject: Hood Mountain, Sonoma County, Ca, USA from Sonoma Valley
context_page_description: Sonoma County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 483,878. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa. It is to the north of Marin County and the south of Mendocino County. It is west of Napa County and Lake County.
  Sonoma County includes the Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area. It is the northernmost county in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region.
  Sonoma is the southwestern county and largest producer of California's Wine Country region, which also includes Napa, Mendocino, and Lake counties. It possesses thirteen approved American Viticultural Areas and over 350 wineries. In 2012, Sonoma County ranked as the 22nd county in the United States in agricultural production. As early as 1920, Sonoma County was ranked as the eighth most agriculturally productive US county and a leading producer of hops, grapes, prunes, apples, and dairy and poultry products, largely due to the extent of available, fertile agricultural land in addition to the abundance of high quality irrigation water.
context_section_description: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 1,768 square miles (4,580 km²), of which 1,576 square miles (4,080 km²) is land and 192 square miles (500 km²) (10.9%) is water.
  The county lies in the North Coast Ranges of northwestern California. Its ranges include the Mayacamas and the Sonoma Mountains, the southern peak of the latter being the prominent landform Sears Point. The highest peak in the Mayacamas within the county is Mt. Saint Helena. It has uncommon occurrences of pygmy forest, dominated by Mendocino cypress. The highest peak of the Sonoma Mountains is Sonoma Mountain itself, which boasts two significant public access properties: Jack London State Historic Park and Fairfield Osborn Preserve.
  The county includes the City of Sonoma and the Sonoma Valley, in which the City of Sonoma is located. However, these are not synonymous. The City of Sonoma is merely one of several incorporated cities in the county. The Sonoma Valley itself makes up only the southeastern portion of the county, which includes many other valleys and geographic zones. Moreover, the Sonoma Valley itself includes not only the City of Sonoma, but a portion of the City of Santa Rosa and the unincorporated communities of Kenwood, Agua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs, and Fetters Hot Springs. Other regions of the county beyond the Sonoma Valley include, among others, the Petaluma Valley, the Santa Rosa Plains, the Russian River, the Alexander Valley, and the Dry Creek Valley.
  Distinct habitat areas within the county include oak woodland, redwood forest, northern coastal scrub, grassland, marshland, oak savanna and riparian woodland. The California oak woodland in the upper Yulupa Creek and Spring Creek watersheds in Annadel State Park is a relatively undisturbed ecosystem with considerable biodiversity. These forested areas have been characterized as some of the best examples of such woodlands. An unusual characteristic of these forests is the high content of undisturbed prehistoric bunchgrass understory, testifying to the absence of historic grazing or other agriculture.
  Trees of the oak woodland habitat include Pacific madrone, Douglas fir, coast live oak, Garry oak and California laurel. Common understory plants are toyon, poison oak, and, at the fringes, coast silk-tassel.
caption: Hood Mountain with vineyards in foreground.
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