Ceres is located in the San Joaquin Valley along State Route 99, south of Modesto and north of Turlock in Stanislaus County.

Spring brings the Ceres Street Faire on the first weekend in May.

Skies the Limit, Ceres Hot Air Balloon Festival, Concert in the Park is a regular summer event.

Halloween Fun Festival marks the fall, followed by the colorful, and much-attended, Christmas Tree Lane opening ceremony.

The first non-native families who inhabited Ceres were those of John Service, Cassius Warner, and Daniel Whitmore in 1867.

That home still stands, fully restored by the city and the Ceres Historical Society.

[8] The Clinton Whitmore Mansion, built in 1903 is also owned by the City of Ceres.

[9][10] In the early 1890s, outlaws Chris Evans and John Sontag robbed several Southern Pacific Railroad trains at Ceres and several other area locations.

[16] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Ceres has a total area of 8.0 sq mi(20.8 km2), 99.9% of it land and 0.1% of it covered by water.

The formation of alluvial fans in the San Joaquin Valley has led to a rather flat regional geography.

[17] Hydrological feature mapping of the Ceres area has been conducted by the U. S. Geological Survey.

In Ceres, California, the home ownership rate, as reported in the 2020 Census, stands at 63.3% and there were a total 13,828 housing units in the city.

The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.5%; the rental vacancy rate was 8.2%; 27,776 people (61.2% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 17,288 people (38.1%) lived in rental housing units.

In the California State Legislature, Ceres is in the 4th Senate District, represented by Republican Marie Alvarado-Gil,[23] and in the 22nd Assembly District, represented by Republican Juan Alanis.

[31] Altamont Corridor Express commuter rail train service is expected to be extended to a new station in Ceres by 2026.