Big Lagoon, CA

Big Lagoon is a Humboldt County census-designated place seven miles north of Trinidad along the northern California coast. The 2020 census counted 161 residents. The community sits beside the southernmost and largest of the four lagoons in the Humboldt Lagoons region, a brackish water body of roughly 1,600 acres bordered by dunes, coastal forest, prairie, marsh, and ocean-facing shore. U.S. 101 keeps the place connected to Eureka, Trinidad, and the Redwood Coast.

Big Lagoon County Park provides day use, camping, and a boat ramp, while the Big Lagoon Wildlife Area protects wetland and riparian habitat used by waterfowl, elk, osprey, trout, and other coastal species. California State Parks manages the surrounding Humboldt Lagoons landscape on the land of the Ner'-er'-nerh and Coastal Yurok People. Fishing, sailing, wildlife watching, and seasonal campground life all depend on the lagoon's water level and sandbar. Big Lagoon is a small residential place whose main landmarks are the water, the highway, and the protected coast around them.