Santa Rosa vs Sonoma

A side-by-side comparison of Santa Rosa and Sonoma: population, income, housing, and more.

Santa Rosa and Sonoma are places in California. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Santa Rosa has the higher population (177,216 vs 10,726 in Sonoma). Sonoma has the higher median household income ($101,281 vs $97,410 in Santa Rosa). Sonoma has the higher median home value ($954,300 vs $685,000 in Santa Rosa).

Population, income & housing

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
Population	177,216	10,726
Median age	40.5 yrs	54.4 yrs
Median household income	$97,410	$101,281
Median home value	$685,000	$954,300
Median gross rent	$2,084	$2,216
Housing units	70,961	5,929
Homeownership rate	56.2%	63.1%
Bachelor's degree or higher	34.8%	47.7%
Unemployment rate	5.5%	7.0%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
Population	179,701 → 177,216 (-1.4%)	11,075 → 10,726 (-3.2%)
Median household income	$75,630 → $97,410 (+28.8%)	$84,352 → $101,281 (+20.1%)
Median home value	$540,600 → $685,000 (+26.7%)	$785,900 → $954,300 (+21.4%)
Median gross rent	$1,609 → $2,084 (+29.5%)	$1,836 → $2,216 (+20.7%)

Santa Rosa

Population

179,701177,216

Median household income

$75,630$97,410

Median home value

$540,600$685,000

Median gross rent

$1,609$2,084

Sonoma

Population

11,07510,726

Median household income

$84,352$101,281

Median home value

$785,900$954,300

Median gross rent

$1,836$2,216

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
Under 5	4.9%	3.1%
5 to 17	15.6%	11.4%
18 to 24	8.2%	5.0%
25 to 34	13.5%	6.4%
35 to 44	14.1%	9.9%
45 to 54	12.9%	15.5%
55 to 64	12.1%	16.2%
65 to 74	11.2%	16.7%
75 and over	7.4%	15.9%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
White (non-Hispanic)	51.0%	78.1%
Black or African American	1.7%	1.3%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.2%	0.0%
Asian	6.3%	1.9%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.5%	0.1%
Some other race	0.4%	0.1%
Two or more races	4.1%	2.7%
Hispanic or Latino	35.8%	15.8%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
No high school diploma	14.5%	4.4%
High school graduate	19.2%	18.7%
Some college or associate's	31.6%	29.2%
Bachelor's degree	21.3%	28.6%
Graduate or professional degree	13.4%	19.1%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
Drove alone	73.1%	67.4%
Carpooled	11.1%	3.3%
Public transit	1.1%	0.0%
Walked	2.3%	3.8%
Bicycle	0.6%	0.6%
Worked from home	10.5%	22.4%
Other means	1.3%	2.4%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
1-unit, detached	57.8%	60.8%
1-unit, attached	10.4%	9.2%
2 to 4 units	8.9%	11.2%
5 to 19 units	9.9%	6.5%
20 or more units	9.0%	5.8%
Mobile home & other	4.0%	6.6%

Poverty & households

	Santa Rosa	Sonoma
Poverty rate	9.5%	8.5%
Average household size	2.54	1.98
Mean commute (minutes)	23	27
Median year structure built	1980	1979