Oakland, founded in 1852, is a major American city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. To the north lies Berkeley, home to the campus of the renowned University of California. To west stands San Francisco, across the Bay Bridge. Separated from the mainland by an estuary to the southwest is the island city of Alameda, while San Leandro lies to the southeast. Along the hills which run northwest to southeast, Oakland borders five of the East Bay Regional Parks. In the center of Oakland, and completely surrounded by it (prompting the common analogy to a doughnut hole), is the wealthy city of Piedmont. Oakland is home of the Port of Oakland, one of three major shipping ports on the American West coast.

Oakland has experienced an increase of population and of real-estate prices in the past decade, attributable to economic recovery, along with Oakland's weather, location, hillside neighborhoods with views of San Francisco and the Bay, attempts to reduce crime, high rents and home prices in nearby San Francisco, and a substantial offering of shopping districts and restaurants representing cuisines both homegrown and worldwide.^{[citation needed]}

Oakland is the county seat of Alameda County. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the city's population was 399,484, making it the third largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area after San Jose and San Francisco.

The Oakland Tribune published its first newspaper on February 21, 1874. The Tribune Tower, which sports a clock, is one of Oakland's landmarks.

Oakland hosts Oakland International Airport, which serves most of the low-cost air traveler's market to and from the San Francisco Bay Area. Major employers in Oakland include the local, state and federal governments, United States Postal Service, regional transportation and utility authorities, Kaiser Permanente, Clorox, Zhone Technologies, Dreyers Grand Ice Cream, carriers associated with the Port, and commercial bakeries.

Some Oaklanders are frustrated by the misuse of the most famous quote said about their city. "There's no there there," was uttered by Gertrude Stein upon learning as an adult that her childhood Oakland home had been torn down. Her quote did not refer to the city itself. Modern-day Oakland has turned the quote on its head, with a statue downtown simply titled, "There." Additionally, in 2005 a sculpture called HERETHERE has been installed by the City of Berkeley on the Berkeley-Oakland border at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The sculpture consists of eight foot high letters spelling out the words "HERE" and "THERE" in front of a ramp that carries the BART rapid transit tracks from its elevated section in Oakland to the underground section in Berkeley.