About Sonoma, California (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sonoma is a historically significant town in Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County, California, USA. Sonoma is centered around its historic town plaza, a remnant of the town's Spanish colonial past. Sonoma today is a center of the wine industry for the famed Sonoma Valley Appellation. The city population was 9,128 as of the year 2000 census/decennial.

Sonoma, as most of the Californias, were earliest inhabited by the Miwok Indian tribes to which many remain even after the varied overseerers of many governments.

Sonoma's best start in modern history is with the location of Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 as the last and northernmost of the 21 California missions or the end of El Camino Real. This El Presidio de Sonoma, or Sonoma Barracks (part of Spain's Fourth Military District), was established in 1836 by Comandante General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo who had the tasks of secularizing the Mission and keeping an eye on the Russians at Fort Ross.

This was the sole California mission established under the rule of a newly-independent Mexico. Soon after the Sonoma mission was built, it was secularized by the Mexican government, and, under the orders of Lieutenant, later General, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. El Pueblo de Sonoma was laid out in the standard form of a Mexican town, centered around the Plaza which is still the town's focal point. Vallejo's arrest in 1846 by a band of Americans claiming to act on the orders of Col. John C. Fremont was the initial act that founded the Bear Flag Republic. Vallejo later transferred his allegiance to U.S. statehood (1850) and with his amassed land holdings guided the development of the town of Sonoma.

The town was laid out around the Plaza, surrounded by the Mission San Francisco Solano, Vallejo's Casa Grande, a barracks/presidio for the general's army, and other buildings. The Plaza is a National Historic Landmark, and still serves as the town's focal point, hosting many community festivals and drawing tourists all year round. Sonoma's early 20th-century City Hall, at the Plaza's center and still in use, was designed and built with four identical sides in order not to offend the merchants on any one side of the Plaza.

Sonoma is known as the birthplace of California, for it was in the Plaza that the Bear Flag was first raised on June 14, 1846. Sonoma served as the capital of the short-lived California Republic until the American flag was raised as a result of the Battle of Monterey three weeks after the Revolt.

Sonoma is also considered the birthplace of winemaking in California, dating back to the original vineyards of Mission San Francisco Solano, then improvements made by Agoston Haraszthy, the father of California viticulture and credited with introduction of the Zinfandel / Primitivo grape varietal. The Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival takes place late each September, and is California's oldest celebration of its winemaking heritage.

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