Along with a number of other Mendocino County coastal communities, Point Arena was associated with the hippie and subsequent counterculture groups.

Hiking trails with coastal prairie and ocean views can be accessed from Point Arena City Hall.

At Arena Cove Historic District and pier, huge oceanfront bluffs show the power of the interface of tectonic plates.

The first European to record Point Arena was Spaniard Bartolomé Ferrer in 1543, who named it Cabo de Fortunas ("cape of fortunes").

The cape was renamed to Punta Delgado (narrow point) in 1775 by lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (commander of the schooner Sonora), part of a royal expedition chartered by the government of Mexico to map the north coast of Alta California.

[5] In 1886, Nellie Welch, an 11-year-old girl, was appointed lead operator and had full charge of the telegraph office in Point Arena.

[9][10][11] In 2002, AT&T applied for a permit from the EPA to connect an existing fiber optic conduit to the cable station, since further construction would cause incidental damage to the habitat of the endangered Point Arena mountain beaver.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.4 square miles (3.6 km2), all of it land.

This is the location of the Point Arena Light, at 115 feet (35 m) the tallest lighthouse on the west coast of the United States.

The lighthouse is the closest location on the mainland (excluding Alaska) to Honolulu, Hawaii, at a distance of 2,353 miles (3,787 km).

[13] The San Andreas Fault runs out to sea at Alder Creek near Manchester, about 6 miles (10 km) north of Point Arena.

A variety of fauna and flora occur in the Point Arena area which is a range demarcation for occurrence of some species.

[15] It is also the type locality for the Point Arena mountain beaver, Aplodontia rufa nigra, which is federally listed under the Endangered Species Act as endangered, and is considered a mammalian species of special concern by the State of California.

Fish and Wildlife Service, the habitat for this subspecies of mountain beaver lies only within a 24 sq mi (62 km2) area around Point Arena.

The biggest threat to the PAMB is loss of habitat, and it was officially listed as an endangered species on December 12, 1991.

The firm of Earth Metrics Inc., who prepared the Noise Element of the Point Arena General Plan, found that, even considering the presence of logging trucks on main city streets, composite sound levels rarely exceed 55 Leq.

[18] The maximum acceptable sound level specified in that General Plan Element is 60 Leq for residential areas.

Point Arena is governed by an elected five-member city council which includes the mayor.

[24] Federally, Point Arena is in California's 2nd congressional district, represented by Democrat Jared Huffman.