North Coast (California)

North Coast Redwood Empire
Coast Redwood forest in Redwood National Park
The North Coast Region of the state of California
Country	United States
State	California

The North Coast of California (also called the Redwood Empire or the Redwood Coast) is the region in Northern California that lies on the Pacific coast between San Francisco Bay and the Oregon border. It commonly includes Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties and sometimes includes two counties from the San Francisco Bay area, Marin and Sonoma.

Much of the area is rural, and the only city within the region with a population of over 100,000 is Santa Rosa. Despite their size, many of the region's cities and towns have historical importance to the State and/or regional importance.

The region's Pacific Ocean coast stretches from San Francisco Bay northwards to Humboldt Bay and on to the border of Oregon. The coastline is often inaccessible, and includes rocky cliffs and hills, streams and tide pools. The coastline from Centerville Beach near Ferndale to the mouth of the Klamath River is mostly beach accessible and there are many small towns and a few cities along Highway 101, the main route through the region. The sparsely populated interior territory further inland is characterized by rugged, often steep mountains, dissected by rivers and their typically narrow valleys and canyons, and dense redwood, Douglas fir, and oak forests. The climate can range from coast side lands drenched with fog in mild winters and summers to inland reaches baked by hot sunshine on long summer days, which, at higher elevations, can be blanketed with snow in winter.