How this list was compiled: Items made on 2026-09-26; names, ids and accepted spellings are Natural Earth's. Licence: public domain (work of the United States government, 17 U.S.C. 105): https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/data/tiger/tgrshp2023/TGRSHP2023_TechDoc_Ch1.pdf; public domain (Natural Earth terms of use: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)
The drawing: Drawn for this site from U.S. Census Bureau 2023 cartographic boundary file cb_2023_us_county_5m (scale 1:5,000,000), https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2023/shp/cb_2023_us_county_5m.zip, downloaded 2026-09-19. Surrounding land from U.S. Census Bureau 2023 cartographic boundary file cb_2023_us_state_5m (scale 1:5,000,000), https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2023/shp/cb_2023_us_state_5m.zip, downloaded 2026-09-19 and from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_10m_admin_0_countries_lakes (scale 1:10,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_10m_admin_0_countries_lakes.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Albers equal-area conic projection, central meridian 120.3°W, standard parallels 34.1°N and 40.4°N. Outlines simplified; small islands are left out. Licence: public domain (work of the United States government, 17 U.S.C. 105): https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/data/tiger/tgrshp2023/TGRSHP2023_TechDoc_Ch1.pdf; public domain (Natural Earth terms of use: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)
How it works
This California map printable shows all 58 counties of California, from Alameda to Yuba, with Sacramento, the capital, in Sacramento County; with Borders off it prints the plain outline.
Read the full guide
Blank, numbered or named
Blank prints the 58 shapes with nothing written; Numbered puts 1 on Alameda and 58 on Yuba, in alphabetical order; Named prints every name, and Print the answer key gives the list.
California on the map
San Bernardino County is the largest county in the United States by area; San Francisco, a city and county in one, is the smallest in California and carries a ring. Its neighbors, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico, are drawn around it without numbers.
For a Bay Area lesson, print Numbered and ask only the nine counties that touch San Francisco Bay.
Questions and answers
How many counties does California have?
Fifty-eight in the Census Bureau count, from Alameda County to Yuba County in alphabetical order.
What county is Sacramento in?
Sacramento stands in Sacramento County, which is number 34 on the numbered sheet. Have students find it first and write Sacramento beside it.
Which is the largest county in California?
San Bernardino County, in the Mojave Desert, the largest county in the United States by area. It is bigger than nine of the fifty states.
Which county of California has the most people?
Los Angeles County, around Los Angeles, has more people than any other county in California, while the capital, Sacramento, is in Sacramento County.