Blank Bay Area Map – Counties and Cities to Label

All 11 places on the diagram

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Counties 9

Alameda County The east shore of the bay, where Oakland is.
Contra Costa County East of the bay, north of Alameda County.
Marin County North of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate.
Napa County In the north, between Sonoma and Solano counties.
San Francisco County The tip of the peninsula. City and county are one.
San Mateo County The peninsula south of San Francisco.
Santa Clara County At the south end of the bay, around San Jose.
Solano County In the northeast, north of Contra Costa County.
Sonoma County The northwest corner, on the Pacific coast.

Cities 2

Oakland The dot on the east shore, in Alameda County.
San Jose The dot south of the bay, in Santa Clara County.

How this list was compiled: The nine-county list: Association of Bay Area Governments, membership directory (County of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, the City and County of San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma), https://abag.ca.gov/about-abag/what-we-do/our-members, read 2026-10-01, and Wikipedia, 'San Francisco Bay Area' (the nine counties that border San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun bays; the North Bay as Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano; San Jose in Santa Clara County), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area, read 2026-10-01. County shapes and names: the site's own map drawing, made by script from the files named below. San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean are open water on the drawing and are not asked. 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_500k (scale 1:500,000), https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2023/shp/cb_2023_us_county_500k.zip, downloaded 2026-09-19; from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_10m_populated_places_simple (scale 1:10,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_10m_populated_places_simple.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Surrounding land from U.S. Census Bureau 2023 cartographic boundary file cb_2023_us_state_500k (scale 1:500,000), https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/GENZ2023/shp/cb_2023_us_state_500k.zip, downloaded 2026-09-19. Albers equal-area conic projection, central meridian 122.3°W, standard parallels 37.2°N and 38.6°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 blank Bay Area map shows the nine California counties around San Francisco Bay, from Sonoma and Napa south to Santa Clara. Oakland and San Jose are dots, and the bay is the open water in the middle.

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Blank, numbered or named

The sheet opens blank. Numbered puts 1 to 9 on the counties in alphabetical order, 10 on Oakland and 11 on San Jose. Named writes the names, and Print the answer key gives the list.

Which Bay Area

This is the San Francisco Bay Area: the counties that touch San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay or Suisun Bay. With Borders off, the sheet prints all nine as one outline around the water. Quiz yourself on this map names one place at a time for you to tap.

Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano are the North Bay. Have students label those four first.

Questions and answers

Which counties are in the Bay Area?

Nine: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. That is the list of the Association of Bay Area Governments, the council of the region's cities and counties.

Is San Jose in the Bay Area?

Yes. San Jose is in Santa Clara County, at the south end of the bay. It is the dot numbered 11 on this map.

Why is San Francisco so small on the map?

San Francisco is a city and a county in one, at the tip of a peninsula. It is the smallest of the nine shapes. Sonoma County, in the northwest corner, is the largest.

Can I print all of California instead?

Yes, from the California map printable, which numbers all 58 counties on one sheet. This page prints the nine Bay Area counties larger, so that San Francisco has room for a number.