East Bay Regional Park District

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The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. It maintains and operates a system of regional parks which is the largest urban park district in the United States.

The EBRPD was founded in 1934, and acquired its first land two years later, when the East Bay Municipal Utility District sold 2166 acres (8.77 km²) of its surplus land. By 2004 it was operating a system of 65 parks covering almost 96,000 acres (390 km²). Some of these are wilderness areas; others include a variety of visitor attractions, with opportunities for swimming, angling, boating and camping. There are more than 1,100 miles (1,800 km) of hiking trails within the parks, and in addition nearly 150 miles (240 km) of paved trails through urban areas link parks together. The founding fathers of the district were Robert Sibley, a hiking enthusiast and Hollis Thompson, then Berkeley City Manager.^[1]

The parks administered by the EBRPD vary greatly in size and character. Particularly notable are the string of parks along the ridge of the Berkeley/Oakland hills, including Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, Tilden Regional Park, Robert Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, Redwood Regional Park and Anthony Chabot Regional Park, and bay shore parks such as the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline. The district also includes a former farm, a former coal mine, an extinct volcano, and one of the biggest dog-walking parks in the country. Redwood Regional Park contains the largest remaining natural stand of coast redwood in the East Bay.