Sacramento serves as the state capital for California, America’s most highly populated state. Sacramento ranks ninth among America’s highest-populated state capital cities.

Nicknames for Sacramento include Sactown, Sac and the City of Trees. The official moniker for California is the Golden State.

One of the many popular tourist attractions in Sacramento is the Crocker Art Museum, the oldest public art museum west of the Mississippi River.

A little-known fact is that Sacramento is the second-most flood susceptible American city.

Dubbed the most hipster city in California, Sacramento is famous for its evolving contemporary culture.

Research website numbeo ranks Sacramento in the top 18% compared to the 250 cities evaluated on its overall quality of life index at June 2020. Sacramento scored well on index factors such as traffic commute time (traffic commute time (fastest 11%), purchasing power (strongest 14%), property price to income ratio (lowest 15%) and climate (best 24%). On the negative side, Sacramento rates relatively poorly for cost of living (highest 15%) and safety (worst 32%).

Guinness World Records points to Sacramento as being the site where the world’s heaviest woman was measured back in July 2012, when American Pauline Potter weighed in at 643 pounds (293.6 kilograms).

Turning to a more employment-based perspective, Sacramento serves as headquarters for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District which ranks among America’s 10 largest publicly owned utilities. Other notable businesses based in Sacramento are: PeopleFinders.com specializing in background checks and identity theft protection; structural and earthquake engineering firm Miyamoto International; and multi-newspaper publisher The McClatchy Company.

From an international trade perspective, California exported US$174.026 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2019. Its most valuable exports include civilian aircraft or engines and other parts (4.1% of California’s global total), electric motor vehicles (also 4.1%), non-industrial diamonds (2.6%), modems (2.5%), shelled almonds (2.1%), semiconductors-making machines (also 2.1%), refined petroleum oils (1.9%), electronic integrated circuits (1.7%), composite diagnostic or laboratory reagents (1.5%), and medical, dental or veterinarian instruments and appliances (1.4%) according to United States Census Bureau data.

The non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Sacramento County was 12.5% in July 2020, up from 4.1% one year earlier.

Capital Facts for Sacramento, United States: Quick Reference

 
Sacramentans celebrate Independence Day as a national holiday each July 4.

Sacramento’s land area occupies 97.68 square miles (253 square kilometers). The state capital’s population was 521,769 Sacramentans at September 23, 2020.

At the state level, California covers a land area measuring 155,959 square miles (403,932 square kilometers) home to a population of 39.9 million people.

Sacramento’s population density is more concentrated averaging 5,342 residents per square mile (2,062 per square kilometer).

Zooming out to California’s land boundaries, population density dilutes to an average 256 inhabitants per square mile (99 per square kilometer).