Kensington, California
Kensington is an unincorporated community and census designated place located in the Berkeley Hills, in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Contra Costa County, California. In the 20th century it was considered part of Berkeley, although it is across the county line. House numbers follow the pattern used in Berkeley, and Kensington shares two zip codes with the Berkeley Hills area.
Kensington | |
|---|---|
Census designated place and unincorporated community | |
Location in Contra Costa County and the state of California | |
| Coordinates: 37°54′38″N 122°16′49″W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Contra Costa |
| Government | |
| • County Board | District 1: John Gioia |
| • State Senate | Nancy Skinner (D) |
| • State Assembly | Buffy Wicks (D) |
| • U. S. Congress | John Garamendi (D) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 0.956 sq mi (2.48 km2) |
| • Land | 0.947 sq mi (2.45 km2) |
| • Water | 0.009 sq mi (0.02 km2) 0.97% |
| Elevation | 587 ft (179 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 5,077 |
| • Density | 5,300/sq mi (2,100/km2) |
| Time zone | UTC-8 (PST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
| ZIP codes | 94707, 94708 |
| Area code | 510, 341 |
| GNIS ID | 1658891, 2408472 |
| FIPS code | 06-38086 |
The population was 5,077 at the 2010 census. Kensington’s community is mostly highly educated and affluent, and it contains only single family residential houses. It is among the safest and cleanest places in the United States, with one of the nation’s top public elementary schools. Many distinguished University of California, Berkeley professors, Nobel Prize laureates, and other notable San Francisco Bay Area professionals reside or have resided in Kensington, such as University of California, Berkeley’s theoretical physicist and professor of physics Robert Oppenheimer who was the Director of the Manhattan Project’s Project Y that developed the atomic bombs during World War II.