After California achieved statehood two years later, San Jose was designated as the state's first capital. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence.įollowing the American Conquest of California during the Mexican–American War, the territory was ceded to the United States in 1848. San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first city founded in the Californias. It is home to one of the world's largest overseas Vietnamese populations, a Hispanic community that makes up over 40% of the city's residents, and historic ethnic enclaves such as Japantown and Little Portugal.īefore the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was long inhabited by the Tamien nation of the Ohlone peoples of California. 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.

Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Inc., PayPal, Broadcom, Samsung, Acer, and Zoom maintain their headquarters in San Jose. Its connection to the booming high tech industry phenomenon known as Silicon Valley prompted Mayor Tom McEnery to adopt the city motto of 'Capital of Silicon Valley' in 1988 to promote the city. San Jose is notable for its innovation, cultural diversity, affluence, and sunny and mild Mediterranean climate.

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. 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 km 2). With a 2020 population of 1,013,240, it is the most populous city in both the Bay Area and the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which has a 2015 population of 7.7 million and 9.7 million people respectively, the third-most populous city in California after Los Angeles and San Diego, and the 12th-most populous in the United States. San Jose, officially the City of San José ( Spanish for ' Saint Joseph' / ˌ s æ n h oʊ ˈ z eɪ, - ˈ s eɪ/ Spanish: ), is the largest city in Northern California by both population and area.

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