List of Cities in California

There are 483 incorporated cities in California. Almost nobody guesses anywhere near that, and the reason is that roughly six of them carry the state’s entire reputation abroad. Los Angeles. San Francisco. San Diego. Sacramento. Palm Springs, plus Santa Barbara if you follow this sort of thing. Most Californians live in the other 477, and plenty of those repay a stop.

Quick facts

The 75 largest cities in California

Population figures below come from the 2024 American Community Survey. The state’s own Department of Finance put California at 39.59 million residents on 1 January 2026, a slight decline on the year before, so treat these as close rather than exact.

Complete list of California cities by county

All 483 incorporated cities, grouped by county and organised into eight travel regions. Counties are listed alphabetically within each region.

Southern California coast

The Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego county block holds 140 cities between them, roughly 29 per cent of the state total in a strip you can drive in a long day.

No road reaches Avalon, out on Santa Catalina Island, so it stands alone among the state’s cities. Coronado, Del Mar and Solana Beach can each be crossed on foot in an afternoon. Then there is Vernon, home to under 250 people and roughly 50,000 daily workers, comfortably the oddest municipality California has produced.

Inland Empire and the deserts

The Coachella Valley resort strip is really Palm Springs plus its four desert neighbours. Anyone heading into Joshua Tree National Park passes through Yucca Valley or Twentynine Palms. Over on the Colorado River, Needles turns up again and again in national records for the highest temperature in the lower 48.

Central Coast

Few parts of California pack so many reasons to stop into so few small cities. Carmel-by-the-Sea does without street addresses and without streetlights. Danish settlers founded Solvang in 1911 and the place has committed to that heritage ever since. Ojai occupies a valley that turns pink as the sun drops, an effect residents call the pink moment.

San Francisco Bay Area

Nine counties and 101 cities, which is the tightest packing of incorporated municipalities anywhere in California.

Nowhere else in California do a city and a county share both their boundaries and their government, but San Francisco does. Immediately south sits Colma, where about 1,800 living residents share the ground with something near 1.5 million buried ones across seventeen cemeteries. Sausalito and Tiburon lie a short ferry ride away and feel like they belong to another state entirely.

Sacramento Valley and Gold Country

A single drive along Highway 49 strings together most of the Gold Country cities. Nevada City and Sutter Creek still have their nineteenth century main streets more or less intact. Mariposa County holds the bulk of Yosemite National Park without containing one incorporated city, so the town of Mariposa answers directly to the county seat.

San Joaquin Valley

Interstate 5 carries most visitors straight across the valley without a single stop, and anyone who enjoys small city Americana loses out by doing that. Lodi grows serious wine and charges nothing like Napa prices. Kingsburg has held on to its Swedish origins down to the water tower, painted to look like a coffee pot. For Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Visalia is the sensible base.

Eastern Sierra

Two cities spread across ground bigger than Belgium. Everything on the eastern side of the Sierra restocks in Bishop, while Mammoth Lakes handles the skiing. Alpine County gets by with about 1,200 residents, no incorporated city, not one traffic light and no supermarket.

Far North and North Coast

Emptier than any other quarter of the state, and the part that catches visitors off guard most often. Ferndale is a preserved Victorian dairy town sitting near the Lost Coast. Trinidad supports roughly 350 residents and one of the finest small harbours on the Pacific. Beneath Mount Shasta, Dunsmuir once put a claim to the best water on earth on its town sign.

The outliers

Newest is Mountain House, over in San Joaquin County, which took the number 483 slot when it incorporated on 1 July 2024. Developers built it from nothing in the early 2000s as a master planned community, and its growth rate has ranked among the state’s highest ever since.

Smallest is Amador City, which the 2020 census put at 200 residents inside a total area of 0.3 square miles, making it California’s least populous incorporated city and also its smallest by area. Ten minutes on foot covers the lot. Its main street is a row of Gold Rush buildings that nobody has stopped using since the 1850s.

Highest is Mammoth Lakes, at 7,880 feet. Second place goes to Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino County, somewhere near 6,750 feet.

Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, remains the one city with no road in. Ferries sail from Long Beach, San Pedro and Dana Point. Once ashore, nearly everyone travels by golf cart, since the waiting list for a private car permit runs to years.

Three counties contain no incorporated city of any kind. County government handles everything in Alpine, Mariposa and Trinity, and those three together take in a wide band of the Sierra Nevada and the northern coast ranges, Yosemite mostly included.

How California cities are organised

Incorporation buys a community three things: its own council, its own budget, and authority over its own planning decisions. Getting there means petitioning the county Local Agency Formation Commission, demonstrating that the place can fund its own services, then letting local voters decide. The whole business is slow and costly, and that is why only one city joined the list between 2011 and 2024.

Anywhere that has not incorporated falls to county government instead, and about a fifth of the state’s population lives that way. Size is no barrier. East Los Angeles carries over 110,000 residents and would slot into the state’s 60 largest cities if it ever incorporated. Official statistics abbreviate these as CDPs, or census designated places, which the Census Bureau tracks separately purely for data reasons. They are not cities, and none of them appear above.

As for “town,” the word does no legal work in California. Twenty two municipalities carry it in their official name because their founders liked what it implied. Danville, Truckee, Yountville, Apple Valley, Mammoth Lakes and Los Gatos are towns by title and cities by statute.

Frequently asked questions

How many cities are there in California?

There are 483 incorporated cities in California. Mountain House, in San Joaquin County, was the most recent to join, incorporating on 1 July 2024.

What is the largest city in California?

Los Angeles, at roughly 3.86 million residents, which also makes it the second largest city in the United States behind New York. San Diego follows within California at about 1.39 million, then San Jose at a shade under a million.

What is the smallest city in California?

Amador City, up in the Gold Country, which the 2020 census recorded at 200 residents. At 0.3 square miles it is also the smallest by land area.

Which California county has the most cities?

Los Angeles County holds the most, with 88 incorporated cities inside its borders. Orange County takes second place at 34 and Riverside County third at 28.

Are there California counties with no cities? Y

es, three of them. Neither Alpine, Mariposa nor Trinity County contains an incorporated city, so the county governs everything within them directly.

What is the difference between a city and a town in California?

In legal terms, none at all, because state law treats the two identically. Twenty two municipalities merely picked town for their official name, Danville, Truckee and Mammoth Lakes among them.

Is Los Angeles the capital of California?

No. That role has belonged to Sacramento since 1854. Its population sits at roughly 529,000, placing it sixth largest in California.

What is the newest city in California?

Mountain House, which sits near Tracy in San Joaquin County. It became city number 483 on 1 July 2024, the first place to incorporate since Jurupa Valley managed it in 2011.

What is the highest city in California?

Mammoth Lakes, in Mono County, at 7,880 feet. Big Bear Lake comes next at around 6,750 feet.

Which California city can you only reach by boat or plane?

Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island. Ferries sail from Long Beach, San Pedro and Dana Point, and the island also has a small airport.