Map - Stockton, California (Stockton)

Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton is the largest city in the county, the 11th largest city in California and the 58th largest city in the United States. Stockton's population in 2020 was 320,804. It was named an All-America City in 1999, 2004, 2015, and again in 2017. The city is located on the San Joaquin River in the northern San Joaquin Valley.

Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquired Rancho Campo de los Franceses. The city is named after Robert F. Stockton, and it was the first community in California to have a name not of Spanish or Native American origin.

Built during the California Gold Rush, Stockton's seaport serves as a gateway to the Central Valley and beyond. It provided easy access for trade and transportation to the southern gold mines. The University of the Pacific (UOP), chartered in 1851, is the oldest university in California, and has been located in Stockton since 1923. In 2012, Stockton filed for what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history – which had multiple causes, including financial mismanagement in the 1990s, generous fringe benefits to unionized city employees, and the 2008 financial crisis. Stockton successfully exited bankruptcy in February 2015.

When Europeans first arrived in the Stockton area, it was occupied by the Yatchicumne, a branch of the Northern Valley Yokuts Indians. They built their villages on low mounds to keep their homes above regular floods. A Yokuts village named Pasasimas was located on a mound between Edison and Harrison Streets on what is now the Stockton Channel in downtown Stockton.

The Siskiyou Trail began in the northern San Joaquin Valley. It was a centuries-old Native American footpath that led through the Sacramento Valley over the Cascades and into present-day Oregon.

The extensive network of waterways in and around Stockton was fished and navigated by Miwok Indians for centuries. During the California Gold Rush, the San Joaquin River was navigable by ocean-going vessels, making Stockton a natural inland seaport and point of supply and departure for prospective gold-miners. From the mid-19th century onward, Stockton became the region's transportation hub, dealing mainly with agricultural products.