What is the capital of California?

Sacramento is the capital of California, located in the Sacramento Valley about 90 miles northeast of San Francisco at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers. Sacramento has been the state capital since 1854, four years after California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850, although California's earlier territorial and state capitals had included San Jose (1850), Vallejo (1852), and Benicia (1853) before settling on Sacramento.

The city was founded by Swiss immigrant John Sutter, who built Sutter's Fort in 1839 as the center of his agricultural and trading enterprise New Helvetia. Sutter's foreman James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on January 24, 1848, just nine days before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred California from Mexico to the United States. The discovery launched the California Gold Rush, which transformed Sacramento from a sleepy frontier post into the supply hub for the gold fields of the Sierra Nevada foothills and a critical port on the river system that connected San Francisco Bay to the interior.

Sacramento was the western terminus of the Pony Express that operated from April 3, 1860 to October 24, 1861, and the western starting point of the Central Pacific Railroad component of the Transcontinental Railroad, which broke ground at Sacramento on January 8, 1863. The city's population is about 525,000, with a metropolitan area of about 2.4 million people, making it California's fourth largest metro after Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, and San Diego.

The California State Capitol building, completed in 1874 in the neoclassical style, is the centerpiece of downtown Sacramento. The city is also home to the California Supreme Court, California Department of Justice, and dozens of state agencies. Sacramento is the seat of California state government, where the Governor, Legislature, and major executive agencies operate. California has the largest state budget in the country (about 300 billion dollars in 2023 to 2024) and the largest state legislature outside of New Hampshire.

Beyond government, Sacramento is a major regional center for healthcare, education (with California State University Sacramento, the University of California, Davis 15 miles west, and Sacramento City College), agriculture (the Sacramento Valley is a major rice-growing region), and emerging technology sectors. The city has significant Mexican American, African American, Asian American, and Eastern European communities, and is considered one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States.