The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas.
Yerba Buena Island sits in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland, California. The Yerba Buena Tunnel runs through its center and connects the western and eastern spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It has had several other names over the decades: Sea Bird Island, Wood Island, and Goat Island. The island may have been named after the pueblo of Yerba Buena, which was named for the plant of the same name that was abundant in the area. The plant's English and Spanish common name, Yerba buena, is an alternate form of the Spanish hierba buena, generally used to describe local species of the mint family.
Northern California is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, the Redding, California area south of the Cascade Range, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with most of the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.
Tilden Regional Park, also known as Tilden Park or Tilden, [], is a 2,079-acre (841 ha) regional park in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It is between the Berkeley Hills and San Pablo Ridge. Its main entrance is near Kensington, Berkeley, and Richmond. The park is contiguous with Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.
Benicia State Recreation Area is a state park unit of California, United States, protecting tidal wetland. It is located in the Solano County city of Benicia, 2 miles (3.2 km) west of downtown Benicia and borders Vallejo's Glen Cove neighborhood. The park covers 447 acres (181 ha) of marsh, grassy hillsides and rocky beaches along the narrowest portion of the Carquinez Strait. Southampton Creek and the tidal marsh front Southampton Bay, where the combined waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers approach San Pablo Bay, the northern portion of San Francisco Bay.
Lake Merritt is a large tidal lagoon in the center of Oakland, California, just east of Downtown. It is surrounded by parkland and city neighborhoods. It is historically significant as the United States' first official wildlife refuge, designated in 1870, and has been listed as a National Historic Landmark since 1963, and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966. The lake features grassy shores, several artificial islands intended as bird refuges and an interpretive center called the Rotary Nature Center at Lakeside Park. It has a boating center where sailboats, canoes and rowboats can be rented and classes are held. There is a fairy-tale themed amusement park called Children's Fairyland. The Gardens at Lake Merritt is also inside Lakeside Park. It is a 7.5 acre garden which contains seven themed gardens as well as community garden plots for growing food. The Gardens host the Autumn Lights Festival annually in late October, bringing over 100 artists to the garden with fabulous illuminated and digital art. A popular walking and jogging path runs along its Lake perimeter. The circumference of the lake is 3.4 miles (5.5 km) and its area is 155 acres (63 ha).
Mount Tamalpais, known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Mount Tamalpais State Park, the Marin Municipal Water District watershed, and National Park Service land, such as Muir Woods.
John McLaren Park is a park in southeastern San Francisco. At 312.54 acres (126.48 ha), McLaren Park is the third largest park in San Francisco by area, after Golden Gate Park and the Presidio. The park is surrounded mostly by the Excelsior, Crocker-Amazon, Visitacion Valley, Portola and University Mound neighborhoods.
Montclair is a neighborhood in Oakland, California, United States. Montclair is located along the western slope of the Oakland Hills from a valley formed by the Hayward Fault to the upper ridge of the hills.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting 82,116 acres (33,231 ha) of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United States Army. GGNRA is managed by the National Park Service and is the most visited unit of the National Park system in the United States, with more than 15 million visitors a year. It is also one of the largest urban parks in the world, with a size two-and-a-half times that of the consolidated city and county of San Francisco.
Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area (KGRRA), also known simply as Kennedy Grove, is located in West Contra Costa County, California at the base of San Pablo Dam. The nearest city is El Sobrante, California. Created in 1967, it contains a three-mile hiking trail with an elevation of 760 feet (230 m). The Grove features many large eucalyptus trees, picnic areas, volleyball nets, playgrounds, and horseshoe pits. Bird watching is popular here because hawks are almost always spotted. Some hikers have reported seeing golden and bald eagles around the reservoir. There is no camping allowed. Parking is $5 with an extra $2 fee for a dog. Dogs have to be on the leash around the lawn but they are allowed off the leash in remote parts of the park. The park is open from 8 a.m. to dusk.
Dr. Aurelia Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park is a part of the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located in the hills east of Oakland. The park contains the largest remaining natural stand of coast redwood found in the East Bay. The park is part of a historical belt of coast redwood extending south to Leona Canyon Regional Open Space Preserve and east to Moraga.
Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve is a 241 acres (0.98 km2) regional park and nature reserve in the Oakland Hills, in the eastern East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area of California. It is within Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. It is a park within the East Bay Regional Parks District system. The Preserve is named after the California Huckleberry which grows abundantly within its habitat.
Roberts Regional Recreation Area (RRRA) is an area adjacent to Redwood Regional Park located in Alameda County next to Oakland, CA and is part of the East Bay Regional Parks (EBRPD). It is across Skyline Drive from the City of Oakland's Joaquin Miller Park. Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. adopted Roberts Park in 1979, under the newly-developed Adopt-a-Park program, which promised continued funding. This was the first park in EBRPD to be so adopted.
The San Francisco Bay Area, which includes the major cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, hosts six major league sports franchises, as well as several other professional and college sports teams, and hosts other sports events.
The Joaquin Miller House, also known as The Abbey, is a historic house in Joaquin Miller Park, a public park in the Oakland Hills area of Oakland, California, United States. A crude, vaguely Gothic structure, it was the home of poet Joaquin Miller from 1886 until his death in 1913. Miller was one of the nation's first poets to write about the far western United States. The property, which includes several idiosyncratic monuments created by Miller, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
Oakland Hills is an informal term used to indicate the city neighborhoods lying within the eastern portion of Oakland, California. The northernmost neighborhoods were devastated by the Oakland firestorm of 1991.
Howard Ellsworth Gilkey (1890–1972) was an American landscape architect known for his civic works in Oakland, California and as a designer of garden shows.
Big Break Regional Shoreline is a regional park in Oakley, Contra Costa County, northern California. It is a part of the East Bay Regional Park District system.
