Oakland Sights

  1. Lake Merritt

    Lake Merritt is an urban jewel and a popular place to stroll or go running (a 3.5-mile track circles the lake). Once a tidal marsh teeming with waterfowl, it became a lake in 1869 with the damming of an arm of the Oakland Estuary. The following year, the state legislature designated Lake Merritt a wildlife refuge, the first in the USA. The lake still supports migratory waterfowl, and it's still connected to the estuary via a culvert, so its 155 acres are saltwater.

    Read more about Lake Merritt