Situated at roughly 2,500 feet (760 m) in elevation in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, this northern Gold Country city is 57 miles (92 km) by car from Sacramento and 88 miles (142 km) west of Reno.

Grass Valley, which was originally known as Boston Ravine and later named Centerville, dates from the California Gold Rush, as does nearby Nevada City.

When a post office was established in 1851, it was renamed Grass Valley the next year for unknown reasons.

[7]: 42  Wiliam Bourn Jr. had taken over management of the Empire Mine in 1878 after his father's death, replacing water power with steam.

However, gold mining operations in the area ended during WWII, due to War Production Board Limitation Order 208.

[14] Cornish pasties are a local favorite dish with a few restaurants in town specializing in recipes handed down from the original immigrant generation.

There was formerly a (short-lived) Roman Catholic Diocese of Grass Valley[15] in 1868–1884, later relocated in Sacramento (and now a titular see).

The Grass Valley Kmart store, opened in 1981, was the last remaining location in California at the time that it closed in 2021.

[18] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 4.7 square miles (12 km2), all of it land.

Granitic rock such as quartz diorite underlies the downtown core and extends south along Highway 49.

Here the vegetation is sparse considering the high average annual precipitation, with much grassland, and forested areas are often dominated by several species of oaks and the crooked, thin-crowned gray pine.

[21][22] Grass Valley has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with warm to hot, dry summers and wet, cool, rainy winters.

This contributes to a heavy fuel-loading of brush and grass, which dry out during the near-rainless summer, posing a wildfire hazard.

Less marine influence means that snow tends to occur more irregularly than some communities at similar elevation nearby to the south, such as Pollock Pines.

The Gold Rush days left a historical legacy and tourism and the related services sector constitute the bulk of the local economy.

[citation needed] Another significant sector of the local economy is agriculture, as the soil in Nevada County is quite fertile.

Around the time of the Gold Rush, farmers planted orchards, vegetables, and other produce as ranchers brought in cattle, sheep, and other livestock.

[30] The Grass Valley Group is a media technology research and development company founded in the city in 1959.

Public transportation is served by the Gold Country Stage [1] and limited to the urban areas.