The Sacramento Valley is the portion of the California Central Valley that lies to the north of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta. It encompasses all or parts of ten counties.

Geography

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The Sacramento River and its tributaries dominate the geography of the Sacramento Valley. Rising in the various mountain ranges (the various Northern Coast Ranges to the west, the southern Siskiyou Mountains to the north, and the northern Sierra Nevada to the east) that define the shape of the valley, they provide water for agricultural, industrial, residential, and recreation uses. Most of the rivers are heavily dammed and diverted.

The terrain of the Sacramento Valley is primarily flat grasslands that become lusher as one moves east from the rain shadow of the Coast Ranges toward the Sierras. Unlike the San Joaquin Valley, which in its pre-irrigation state was a vegetation-hostile desert, the considerably more humid Sacramento Valley had significant tracts of forest prior to the arrival of settlers of European ancestry. Most of it was cut down during the California Gold Rush and the ensuing wave of white American settlement.

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