Downtown Berkeley is the central business district of the city of Berkeley, California, United States, around the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and extending north to Hearst Avenue, south to Dwight Way, west to Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and east to Oxford Street.

During the days when the land was part of the vast Rancho San Antonio, a ford existed across Strawberry Creek beneath a clump of oak trees at approximately the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way.

Following the Mexican–American War, four Americans laid claim to four equal strips of land in what is now downtown Berkeley, bounded on the north by what is today the alignment of Addison Street, and on the south, by Dwight Way.

In the 1890s, Strawberry Creek was culverted through the downtown section, the oak trees were removed, and Shattuck and University Avenues were improved.

The Key System opened up its electric train service to San Francisco from Downtown Berkeley in 1903.

From then until April 1958, downtown Berkeley's commuter train service was solely in the hands of the Key System.

In 1973, BART opened its own Berkeley station at Center Street and Shattuck, once again providing electric train service to San Francisco and elsewhere in the Bay Area.

[1] This move was met with protests from Code Pink, prompted the city council to pass a 6-3 resolution calling the Marines "uninvited and unwelcome intruders", and led to United States Senator Jim DeMint attempting to pass legislation that would strip Berkeley of its $2,392,000 in federal funding.

Contributing factors which continue to date are high commercial rents, a shortage of street parking and convenient garages, and higher consumer prices than those offered elsewhere.

The city has created an official arts district along Addison Street and passed laws restricting business hours in other neighborhoods in an attempt to increase night time activity downtown.