Sierra City (Sierra, Spanish for “mountain range”) is a census-designated place in Sierra County, California, United States. The height above sea level of Sierra City is 4,147 feet (1,264 m), and the town is situated in the canyon of the North Yuba River upon California State Route 49, twelve miles northeast of the county chair of Sierra County, Downieville. The population was 221 at the 2010 census.

Before the California Gold Rush, only Native Americans had ventured into the area, which lies northwest of Lake Tahoe on the western face of the Sierra Nevada, and which lay amid areas inhabited by Maidu, Nisenan, and Washo peoples (Pre-Contact Tribal Map). The Place is now share of the Tahoe National Forest.

A deal was expected in 1850 by Philo A. Haven and Joseph Zumwalt, who were also working with the settling of Downieville (Sinnott). In the Winter of 1852-53, however, an avalanche of snow destroyed the settlement, which was not rebuilt for several years. Ferdinand, Gustav, and Christian Reis purchased several mining claims near the Sierra Buttes and began to resettle Sierra City, which had a height population of 3,000 during the decade after gold was discovered in California (1849).

Numerous hard-rock gold mines were developed on both sides of the North Yuba River Canyon close Sierra City. These tote up the Colombo Mine, the Independence Mine, the Keystone Mine, the Monumental Mine, the Great Sierra Buttes Mine, and the William Tell Mine. The Monumental Nugget, weighing greater than 106 pounds avoirdupois, was recovered in September 1869.