page_title: Marin County, California
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Marin County, California / Geography
caption_attribution_description: The Golden Gate Bridge and the City of San Francisco as seen from the Marin Headlands.
context_page_description: Marin County is located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 252,409. Its county seat is San Rafael. Marin County is across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area.
  As of 2010, Marin County had the fifth highest income per capita in the United States at $91,483. The county is governed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors. The county is also well known for its natural environment.
  San Quentin State Prison is in the county, as is George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Autodesk, the publisher of AutoCAD, is also there, as well as numerous other high-tech companies. The Marin County Civic Center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and draws thousands of visitors a year to guided tours of its arch and atrium design. In 1994, a new county jail facility was embedded into the hillside nearby. Marin County's natural sites include the Muir Woods redwood forest, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, the Point Reyes National Seashore, and Mount Tamalpais.
context_section_description: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 828 square miles (2,140 km²), of which 520 square miles (1,300 km²) is land and 308 square miles (800 km²) (37.2%) is water. It is the fourth-smallest county in California by land area. According to the records at the County Assessor-Recorder's Office, as of June 2006, Marin had 91,065 acres (369 km²) of taxable land, consisting of 79,086 parcels with a total tax basis of $39.8 billion. These parcels are divided into the following classifications:
  Geographically, the county forms a large, southward-facing peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west, San Pablo Bay, and San Francisco Bay to the east, and – across the Golden Gate – the city of San Francisco to the south. Marin County's northern border is with Sonoma County.
  Most of the county's population resides on the eastern side, with a string of communities running along San Francisco Bay, from Sausalito to Tiburon to Corte Madera to San Rafael. The interior contains large areas of agricultural and open space; West Marin, through which State Route 1 runs alongside the California coast, contains many small unincorporated communities whose economies depend on agriculture and tourism. West Marin has beaches which are popular destinations for surfers and tourists year-round.
  Notable features of the shoreline along the San Francisco Bay include the Sausalito shoreline, Richardson Bay, the Tiburon Peninsula, Ring Mountain, and Triangle Marsh at Corte Madera. Further north lies San Quentin State Prison along the San Rafael shoreline.
caption: A view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin Headlands
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 20D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:16 21:52:37", "Image Artist": "David Ball", "Image Copyright": "\u00a9 2006: David Ball", "Image ExifOffset": "264", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "766", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4436", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "20", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:12:28 15:27:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:12:28 15:27:50", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1165241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "540241/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "11", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1314", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "876", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}