San Jose, officially San José (; Spanish: [saŋ xoˈse]; Spanish for ‘Saint Joseph’), is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 population of 1,013,240, it is the most populous city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 9.7 million people respectively, the third-most populous city in California (after Los Angeles and San Diego), and the tenth-most populous in the United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 sq mi (466.1 km²). San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County and the main component of the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara Metropolitan Statistical Area, with an estimated population of around two million residents in 2018.

San Jose is notable for its innovation, cultural diversity, affluence, and sunny and mild Mediterranean climate. Its connection to the booming high tech industry phenomenon known as Silicon Valley sparked Mayor Tom McEnery to adopt for the city the motto of “Capital of Silicon Valley” in 1988. Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Inc., PayPal, Broadcom, Samsung, Acer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Zoom maintain their headquarters in San Jose. San Jose is one of the wealthiest major cities in the world, with the third-highest GDP per capita (after Zürich and Oslo) and the fifth-most expensive housing market. It is home to the world’s largest overseas Vietnamese population, a Hispanic community that makes up over 40% of the city’s residents, and historic Japanese and Portuguese neighborhoods.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was inhabited by the Tamien nation of the Ohlone peoples of California. San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first city founded in the Californias. It then became a part of Mexico in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. Following the American Conquest of California during the Mexican–American War, the territory was ceded to the United States in 1848. After California achieved statehood two years later, San Jose became the state’s first capital. Following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 1960s. The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics
industries further accelerated the transition from an agricultural center to an urbanized metropolitan area. Results of the 1990 U.S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California. By the 1990s, San Jose had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries, making it California’s fastest-growing economy.