With its rich, colorful history, its beautiful scenery and fantastic recreational opportunities, Calaveras County is a wonderful place to live and is filled with natural and historic diversity. Calaveras County is home of the world renowned “Jumping Frog Jubilee” inspired by Mark Twain’s popular story of the “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The County is located in the foothills, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 133 miles east of San Francisco, 135 miles west of Lake Tahoe, and north of the Yosemite Valley area.

Calaveras County is home to a variety of distinct communities, each with its own personality and wonderfully rich history. The County offers affordable homes and land prices with many attractive residential neighborhoods and an abundance of residential building sites, including acreage. The communities of Mokelumne Hill, West Point, San Andreas, Valley Springs, Copperopolis, Angels Camp, Murphys, Avery, Arnold, Dorrington, and Wallace all offer safe neighborhoods, beautiful scenery, and abundant recreational opportunities.

Calaveras County is a great place to live, work and play!
Learn more about what makes Calaveras County great by visiting the Calaveras County Visitors Bureau.

The economy of Calaveras County is primarily dependent upon recreation, ranching, service employment (primarily tourism, governmental and schools), retirement and some mining and timber harvesting. Calaveras County has a rich heritage of education that dates back nearly 150 years. Serving approximately 5,000 students, the schools within the County are among the finest in the state and continue to aim for excellence in education. Each of the 26 schools exceeded the Academic Performance Index Growth Target and were ranked in the top third in the state based on STAR test results. Unique and year-round adventures can be found in Calaveras County, including historic and picturesque Gold Rush towns, awardwinning foothill vineyards and tasting rooms, eclectic art galleries, antique shops, and Gold Rush museums. Professional golf courses are laid out along canyon ridges in the pines or among 200-year-old oaks in rolling terrain.

Each season of the year holds its share of fun activities in Calaveras. In the spring, summer, and fall, residents enjoy biking and hiking trails that wind through the giant Sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park and the Stanislaus National Forest. Off highway adventures and whitewater rafting tours of the famous Stanislaus River beckon the adventurous, while fishing, water skiing, houseboat weekends, camping, bicycling, horseback riding and much more will keep the entire family busy. Caverns within the County draw visitors from around the world. The numerous attractions of winter include first-class downhill skiing at Bear Valley Ski area and excellent cross country trails offer silent, pristine scenes of winter wonder and miles of snowmobiling from two-hour to all day tours around the village or through the woods.