Northern California

Northern California
Northern California counties in red
Clockwise: California State Capitol in Sacramento, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco skyline, San Jose skyline, Muir Woods National Monument, the northern California coast as seen from Muir Beach Overlook, view of the California side of Lake Tahoe and Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz.
Country	United States
State	California
Major Cities	San Francisco San Jose Sacramento Oakland Fresno Modesto Hayward Fremont Santa Rosa San Rafael Redding Salinas Visalia Chico Eureka
Largest Metro	San Francisco Metropolitan Area
Population (2010)	14,573,946

Northern California, often abbreviated NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, in contrast to the 10 counties of Southern California, its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area (anchored by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland), the Greater Sacramento area (anchored by the state capital Sacramento), and the Metropolitan Fresno area (anchored by the city of Fresno). Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with the Sierra Nevada including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta (the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range after Mount Rainier in Washington), and the northern portion of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.

The 48-county definition is not used for the Northern California Megaregion, one of the 11 megaregions of the United States. The megaregion's area is instead defined from Metropolitan Fresno north to Greater Sacramento, and from the Bay Area east across Nevada state line to encompass the entire Lake Tahoe-Reno area.