Oakland summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Oakland.

Oakland, City (pop., 2020: 440,646), western California, U.S., on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. Settled by the Spanish in 1820, it was incorporated as a city in 1854. In 1869 it was chosen as the terminus of the first transcontinental railroad, which led to the development of its deepwater port. It suffered damage and loss of life in the earthquake of 1989, which also damaged the Bay Bridge that connects it with San Francisco. Lake Merritt, near the central business district, is a wildfowl refuge surrounded by parkland. Several colleges are located in Oakland.

California Summary

California, constituent state of the United States of America. It was admitted as the 31st state of the union on September 9, 1850, and by the early 1960s it was the most populous U.S. state. No version of the origin of California’s name has been fully accepted, but there is wide support for the

United States Summary

United States, country in North America, a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 conterminous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska, at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, in the