Sacramento
Sacramento (Spanish for 'sacrament') ( SAK-rə-MEN-toh; Spanish: [sakɾaˈmento]) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 population of 524,943 makes it the fourth-most populous city in Northern California, sixth-most populous city in the state, and the ninth-most populous state capital in the United States. Sacramento is the seat of the California Legislature and the Governor of California. Sacramento is also the cultural and economic core of the Greater Sacramento area, which at the 2020 census had a population of 2,680,831, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in California.Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area was inhabited by the Nisenan, Maidu, and other indigenous peoples of California. Spanish cavalryman Gabriel Moraga surveyed and named the Río del Santísimo Sacramento (Sacramento River) in 1808, after the Blessed Sacrament. In 1839, Juan Bautista Alvarado, Mexican governor of Alta California, granted the responsibility of colonizing the Sacramento Valley to Swiss-born Mexican citizen John Augustus Sutter, who subsequently established Sutter's Fort and the settlement at the Rancho Nueva Helvetia.
