Before the arrival of Europeans, what became known as the Santa Rosa Plain was home to a strong and populous tribe of Pomo people known as the Bitakomtara.

The tribe gathered at ceremonial times on Santa Rosa Creek near present-day Spring Lake Regional Park.

Following the arrival of Europeans, initially Spanish explorers and colonists, the Pomos were decimated by violence, land theft, slavery, genocide and smallpox brought from Europe.

The first known permanent European settlement here was the homestead of the Carrillo family of California, in-laws to Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who settled the Sonoma pueblo and Petaluma area.

By the 1820s, before the Carrillos built their adobe in the 1830s, Spanish and Mexican settlers from nearby Sonoma and other settlements to the south were known to raise livestock in the area.

By the 1850s, after the United States annexed California following its victory in the Mexican-American War, a Wells Fargo post and general store were established in what is now downtown Santa Rosa.

[15] Beginning on the night of October 8, 2017, five percent of the city's homes were destroyed in the Tubbs Fire, a 45,000-acre wildfire that claimed the lives of at least 19 people in Sonoma County.

[16] Named after its origin near Tubbs Lane and Highway 128 in adjacent Napa County, the fire became a major section of the most destructive and third deadliest firestorm in California history.

A notable exception to the destruction in the area was the protection of more than 1,000 animals at the renowned Safari West Wildlife Preserve northeast of Santa Rosa.

It lies along the US Route 101 corridor, approximately 55 miles (89 km) north of San Francisco, via the Golden Gate Bridge.

The prominent visual features east of the city include Bennett Peak, Mount Hood, and Sonoma and Taylor mountains.

[23] Santa Rosa has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csb) with cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers.

They usually clear up to very warm, sunny weather by late morning or noon before returning in the later evening but will occasionally linger all day.

[26] On November 21, 2005, the United States Geological Survey released a map detailing the results of a new tool that measures ground shaking during an earthquake.

The racial makeup of Santa Rosa was: 119,158 White (59.7% non-Hispanic white), 4,079 (2.4%) African American, 2,808 (1.7%) Native American, 8,746 (5.2%) Asian (1.0% Filipino, 1.0% Chinese, 0.8% Vietnamese, 0.6% Indian, 0.5% Cambodian, 0.5% Laotian, 0.3% Japanese, 0.3% Korean, 0.1% Thai, 0.1% Nepalese), 810 (0.5%) Pacific Islander (0.2% Fijian, 0.1% Samoan, 0.1% Hawaiian, 0.1% Guamanian), 23,723 (14.1%) from other races, 8,491 (5.1%) from two or more races.

[42] The Southeast Asian communities, mainly Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian, are concentrated within the western Santa Rosa neighborhoods of Bellevue Ranch, Roseland, and West Steele areas.

Santa Rosa sits at the northwestern gateway to the Sonoma and Napa Valleys of California's famed Wine Country.

The council and downtown business boosters hope condos atop the new buildings will house a population to keep the area active 24 hours a day.

The nearby cities and towns of Bodega Bay, Calistoga, Guerneville, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Sebastopol, Sonoma, and Windsor are popular with tourists and readily accessible from Santa Rosa.

Railroad Square is the portion of downtown that is on the west side of U.S. Route 101 and has the highest concentration of historic commercial buildings.

The Santa Rosa Symphony, a regional orchestra founded in 1928,[63][64] performs at the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park, a new venue with traditional "shoebox" acoustics.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jessica Rasmussen, Anna Wiziarde, and Julian Billotte set up a mailbox painted gold with Dutch metal, for queries concerning the past or the future to be collected and answered by the "United States Portal Service" as part of the city's Open & Out project, with the aims of supporting the US Post Office and alleviating loneliness.

A "strong, sustainable" economy topped the list; other goals include showing leadership in environmental and cultural issues, and promoting "partnerships between neighborhoods, community organizations, schools, and the City".

Into the 1950s, the Southern Pacific Railroad offered substitute bus service from Crockett in the northwestern edge of the San Francisco Bay.

[84] Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) brought passenger railway back to Santa Rosa for the first time in 59 years, opening on August 25, 2017.

[86] The Amtrak Thruway 7 bus provides daily connections to/from Santa Rosa (with a curbside stop at 2012 Range Avenue), Martinez to the south, and Arcata to the north.

[87] Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport located just north of Santa Rosa is served by American, Alaska, and Avelo Airlines.

Nonstop jet flights are available to Los Angeles (LAX), Burbank (BUR), San Diego (SAN), Santa Ana Orange County Airport (SNA), Portland (PDX), Seattle (SEA), Las Vegas (LAS), Phoenix (PHX) and Redmond, Oregon (RDM) with seasonal nonstop service operated to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Palm Springs (PSP).

[88] The Prince Memorial Greenway is a developed bicycle and pedestrian path along Santa Rosa Creek through downtown and out to the west of town.

But the rough-stone Northwestern Pacific Railroad depot and the prominent Empire Building (built in 1910 with a gold-topped clock tower) still survive.