California Sketch Atlas

California's 58 counties, mapped by hand

Stylised map of California shaded in seven colours, one for each region of this atlas, numbered 1 in the far north to 7 in the southeast, with a small dot at each of the 58 county seats.
Stylised illustration. Not to scale and not for navigation. Region boundaries follow county lines only roughly.

California Sketch Atlas files the state's 58 counties into seven regions and draws each region as a simple map: county seats as numbered dots, national and state parks and a few great landforms as lettered markers.

Each region page explains the land, names every county and its seat, and describes the public landmarks in plain language, with the government documents behind each fact listed at the foot of the page.

Browse all 58 counties Start in the Far North

The seven regions

  1. Far North11 counties: Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Humboldt, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Tehama, Plumas, Mendocino, Lake
  2. Sacramento Valley and Gold Country14 counties: Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, Sierra, Nevada, Placer, Yolo, Sacramento, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne
  3. Bay Area9 counties: Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Marin, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara
  4. High Sierra and the East4 counties: Alpine, Mono, Mariposa, Inyo
  5. San Joaquin Valley8 counties: San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Kern
  6. Central Coast6 counties: Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura
  7. Southern California6 counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial

Seven regions, read from north to south

The grouping is this atlas's own, chosen so that each map holds a sensible number of counties and each page tells one connected story. It is not an official division of the state.

  1. The Far North: redwood coast, volcanoes and high desert

    Redwood coast, two great volcanoes and the lava beds of the northeast.

    11 counties, 7 landmarks on the map

  2. The Sacramento Valley and Gold Country

    The capital, the northern Central Valley and the foothill gold belt.

    14 counties, 4 landmarks on the map

  3. The Bay Area: nine counties around one bay

    Nine counties, one bay, and the densest cluster of national park sites in the state.

    9 counties, 8 landmarks on the map

  4. The High Sierra and the East: from Yosemite to Death Valley

    Yosemite, Bodie, Manzanar, and the highest and lowest points in the state.

    4 counties, 7 landmarks on the map

  5. The San Joaquin Valley: the southern Central Valley and its mountain edge

    Farm valley, giant sequoias, Allensworth and the Chávez monument.

    8 counties, 3 landmarks on the map

  6. The Central Coast: redwoods, spires and offshore islands

    The oldest state park, Pinnacles, Hearst San Simeon and the Channel Islands.

    6 counties, 4 landmarks on the map

  7. Southern California: six counties from the coast to the Colorado River

    Coast, mountains and two deserts, from Cabrillo's landing to the Mojave.

    6 counties, 6 landmarks on the map

Drawings for reading, not maps for driving

Every map here is drawn as code from a few hundred rough points, then given a slightly wobbly pen line. Coastlines are simplified, region borders only follow county lines approximately, and dots are placed by eye. That makes the maps quick to read and honest about what they are: illustrations that show where things are in relation to each other.

The tallest mountain in the lower 48 states and the lowest point in North America make the point. The National Park Service gives Mount Whitney's summit as 14,505 feet and Badwater Basin in Death Valley as 282 feet below sea level. On the High Sierra map they sit a short way apart, and the drawing gives no sense of the real distance between them.

How the atlas is written and checked

  • Seats from the state's own listCounty seats are taken from the California Secretary of State's table of political subdivisions by county.
  • Landmarks with a public sourceA park or landform appears only when a National Park Service, US Geological Survey or California State Parks page describes it.
  • Nothing for saleNo tours, bookings, affiliate links or advertising. The atlas is independent of every agency it cites.