University of California, Merced

The University of California, Merced, usually called UC Merced, is a public land-grant research university in Merced County, California, United States. Established in 2005, it is the tenth and newest campus of the University of California system. Its main campus covers about 810 acres roughly five miles north of the city of Merced beside Lake Yosemite, next to protected grasslands and vernal pools that have shaped its planning. It offers over 60 undergraduate degrees and 18 graduate and professional degrees, organized in three schools: Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. In 2025 it was classified as an R1 Carnegie research institution. In this atlas it is the academic home of sociologist Marjorie Zatz, who is Professor Emerita there and served as its Vice Provost and Graduate Dean.