San Jose, officially the City of San Jose ( SAN hoh-ZAY, -SAY; Spanish: [saŋ xoˈse]), is the most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, and the 13th-most populous in the United States, with an estimated 989,814 residents as of 2025. The city's metropolitan area is home to nearly two million people, while the broader combined statistical area (the fifth-largest in the United States) has a population of over nine million. Located in Santa Clara Valley on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 sq mi (466.1 km2) and is the county seat of Santa Clara County.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was long inhabited by the Tamien nation of the Ohlone people. San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first city founded in the Californias. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. Following the U.S. 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 served as the state's first capital. San Jose experienced an economic boom after World War II, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby communities in the 1950s and 1960s. The rapid growth of the technology industry in Silicon Valley further accelerated the city's transition from an agricultural center to an urbanized metropolitan area, prompting Mayor Tom McEnery to adopt San Jose's current motto, "Capital of Silicon Valley", in 1988. Results of the 1990 U.S. census indicated that San Jose had surpassed San Francisco in population. By the early 2000s, the San Jose Metropolitan Area was California's fastest-growing metropolitan economy.
Today, San Jose is notable for its innovation, cultural diversity, affluence, and sunny and mild Mediterranean climate. Major companies including Cisco, eBay, Adobe, PayPal, NetApp, Cadence, and Zoom maintain their headquarters in San Jose. One of the wealthiest major metropolitan areas in the world, the San Jose area was ranked in 2017 as having the third-highest GDP per capita (after Zurich and Oslo) and the fifth-most expensive housing market. The city is home to one of the world's largest overseas Vietnamese populations, a Hispanic community that makes up over 30% of the city's residents, historic ethnic enclaves such as Japantown and Little Portugal, and the largest Sikh Gurdwara outside of India.
Educational and cultural institutions in San Jose include San Jose State University, Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, the Tech Interactive, the San Jose Museum of Art, Winchester Mystery House, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, the Viet Museum, Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Hayes Mansion, San Jose Municipal Rose Garden, and the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Two major league sports teams, the San Jose Sharks and the San Jose Earthquakes, play their home games in San Jose. San Jose International Airport is the third-busiest airport in Northern California. VTA's rail and bus networks, together with Amtrak, ACE, BART, and Caltrain services, connect San Jose to the broader region through hubs such as Diridon Station.
Name
San Jose is named after el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (Spanish for 'the Town of Saint Joseph of Guadalupe'), the city's predecessor, which was eventually located in the area of what is now the Plaza de César Chávez. In the 19th century, print publications used the spelling "San José" for both the city and its eponymous township. On December 11, 1943, the United States Board on Geographic Names ruled that the city's name should be spelled "San Jose" based on local usage and the formal incorporated name.
In the 1960s and 1970s, some residents and officials advocated for returning to the original spelling of "San José", with the acute accent on the "e", to acknowledge the city's Mexican origin and Mexican-American population. On June 2, 1969, the city adopted a flag designed by historian Clyde Arbuckle that prominently featured the inscription "SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA". On June 16, 1970, San Jose State College adopted a policy of using the accent in all written communication. On August 20, 1974, the San Jose City Council approved a proposal by Catherine Linquist to rename the city "San José" but reversed itself a week later under pressure from residents concerned with the cost of changing typewriters, documents, and signs. On April 3, 1979, the city council once again adopted "San José" as the spelling of the city name on the city seal, official stationery, office titles and department names. As late as 2010, the 1965 city charter stated the name of the municipal corporation as City of San Jose, without the accent mark, but later editions have added the accent mark.
By convention, the spelling San José is only used when the name is spelled in mixed upper- and lowercase letters, but not when the name is spelled only in uppercase letters, as on the city logo. The accent reflects the Spanish version of the name, and the dropping of accents in all-capital writing was once typical in Spanish. While San José is commonly spelled both with and without the acute accent over the "e", the city's official guidelines indicate that it should be spelled with the accent most of the time and sets forth narrow exceptions, such as when the spelling is in URLs, when the name appears in all-capital letters, when the name is used on social media sites where the diacritical mark does not render properly, and where San Jose is part of the proper name of another organization or business, such as the San Jose Chamber of Commerce, that has chosen not to use the accent-marked name.
History
Precolonial period
San Jose, along with most of the Santa Clara Valley, has been home to the Tamien tribe of the Ohlone people since around 4,000 BC. The Tamien spoke Tamyen language of the Ohlone language family.
During the era of Spanish colonization and the subsequent building of Spanish missions in California, the Tamien people's lives changed dramatically. From 1777 onward, most of the Tamien people were forcibly enslaved at Mission Santa Clara de Asís or Mission San José where they were baptized and educated to be Catholic neophytes, also known as Mission Indians. This continued until the mission was secularized by the Mexican Government in 1833. A large majority of the Tamien died either from disease in the missions, or as a result of the state sponsored genocide. Some surviving families remained intact, migrating to Santa Cruz after their ancestral lands were granted to Spanish and Mexican Immigrants.
Spanish period
California was claimed as part of the Spanish Empire in 1542, when explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo charted the Californian coast. During this time Alta California and the Baja California peninsula were administered together as Province of Las Californias. For nearly 200 years, the Californias remained a distant frontier region largely controlled by the numerous Native Nations and largely ignored by the government of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City. Shifting power dynamics in North America—including the British/American victory and acquisition of North America, east of the Mississippi following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, as well as the start of Russian colonization of northwestern North America— prompted Spanish/Mexican authorities to sponsor the Portolá Expedition to survey Northern California in 1769.
In 1776, the Californias were included as part of the Captaincy General of the Provincias Internas, a large administrative division created by José de Gálvez, Spanish Minister of the Indies, in order to provide greater autonomy for the Spanish Empire's borderlands. That year, King Carlos III of Spain approved an expedition by Juan Bautista de Anza to survey the San Francisco Bay Area, in order to choose the sites for two future settlements and their accompanying mission. De Anza initially chose the site for a military settlement in San Francisco, for the Royal Presidio of San Francisco, and Mission San Francisco de Asís. On his way back to Mexico from San Francisco, de Anza chose the sites in Santa Clara Valley for a civilian settlement, San Jose, on the eastern bank of the Guadalupe River, and a mission on its western bank, Mission Santa Clara de Asís.
San Jose was officially founded as California's first civilian settlement on November 29, 1777, as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe by José Joaquín Moraga, under orders of Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, Viceroy of New Spain. San Jose served as a strategic settlement along El Camino Real, connecting the military fortifications at the Monterey Presidio and the San Francisco Presidio, as well as the California mission network. In 1791, due to the severe flooding which characterized the pueblo, San Jose's settlement was moved approximately a mile south, centered on the Pueblo Plaza (modern-day Plaza de César Chávez).
In 1800, due to the growing population in the northern part of the Californias, Diego de Borica, Governor of the Californias, officially split the province into two parts: Alta California (Upper California), which eventually became several western U.S. states, and Baja California (Lower California), which eventually became two Mexican states.
Mexican period
San Jose became part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821, after Mexico's War of Independence was won against the Spanish Crown, and in 1824, part of the First Mexican Republic. With its newfound independence, and the triumph of the republican movement, Mexico set out to diminish the Catholic Church's power within Alta California by secularizing the California missions in 1833.
In 1824, in order to promote settlement and economic activity within sparsely populated California, the Mexican government began an initiative, for Mexican and foreign citizens alike, to settle unoccupied lands in California. Between 1833 and 1845, thirty-eight rancho land grants were issued in the Santa Clara Valley, 15 of which were located within modern-day San Jose's borders. Numerous prominent historical figures were among those granted rancho lands in the Santa Valley, including James A. Forbes, founder of Los Gatos, California (granted Rancho Potrero de Santa Clara), Antonio Suñol, Alcalde of San Jose (granted Rancho Los Coches), and José María Alviso, Alcalde of San Jose (granted Rancho Milpitas).
In 1835, San Jose's population of approximately 700 people included 40 foreigners, primarily Americans and Englishmen. By 1845, the population of the pueblo had increased to 900, primarily due to American immigration. Foreign settlement in San Jose and California was rapidly changing Californian society, bringing expanding economic opportunities and foreign culture.
By 1846, native Californios had long expressed their concern for the overrunning of California society by its growing and wealthy Anglo-American community. During the 1846 Bear Flag Revolt, Captain Thomas Fallon led nineteen volunteers from Santa Cruz to the pueblo of San Jose, which his forces easily captured. The raising of the flag of the California Republic ended Mexican rule in Alta California on July 14, 1846.
American period
By the end of 1847, the Conquest of California by the United States was complete, as the Mexican–American War came to an end. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ceded California to the United States, as part of the Mexican Cession. On December 15, 1849, San Jose became the capital of the unorganized territory of California. With California's Admission to the Union on September 9, 1850, San Jose became the state's first capital.
On March 27, 1850, San Jose was incorporated. It was incorporated on the same day as San Diego and Benicia; together, these three cities followed Sacramento as California's earliest incorporated cities. Josiah Belden, who had settled in California in 1842 after traversing the California Trail as part of the Bartleson Party and later acquired a fortune, was the city's first mayor. San Jose was briefly California's first state capital, and legislators met in the city from 1849 to 1851. (Monterey was the capital during the period of Spanish California and Mexican California.) The first capitol no longer exists; the Plaza de César Chávez now lies on the site, which has two historical markers indicating where California's state legislature first met.
In the period 1900 through 1910, San Jose served as a center for pioneering invention, innovation, and impact in both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flight. These activities were led principally by John Montgomery and his peers. The City of San Jose has established Montgomery Park, a Monument at San Felipe and Yerba Buena Roads, and John J. Montgomery Elementary School in his honor. During this period, San Jose also became a center of innovation for the mechanization and industrialization of agricultural and food processing equipment.
Though not affected as severely as San Francisco, San Jose also suffered significant damage from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Over 100 people died at the Agnews Asylum (later Agnews State Hospital) after its walls and roof collapsed, and San Jose High School's three-story stone-and-brick building was also destroyed. The period during World War II was tumultuous; Japanese Americans primarily from Japantown were sent to internment camps, including the future mayor Norman Mineta. Following the Los Angeles zoot suit riots, anti-Mexican violence took place during the summer of 1943. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported San Jose's population as 98% white.
As World War II started, the city's economy shifted from agriculture (the Del Monte cannery was the largest employer and closed in 1999) to industrial manufacturing with the contracting of the Food Machinery Corporation (later known as FMC Corporation) by the United States War Department to build 1,000 Landing Vehicle Tracked. After World War II, FMC (later United Defense, and currently BAE Systems) continued as a defense contractor, with the San Jose facilities designing and manufacturing military platforms such as the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and various subsystems of the M1 Abrams battle tank.
IBM established its first West Coast operations in San Jose in 1943 with a downtown punch card plant, and opened an IBM Research lab in 1952. Reynold B. Johnson and his team developed direct access storage for computers, inventing the RAMAC 305 and the hard disk drive; the technological side of San Jose's economy grew.
During the 1950s and 1960s, City Manager A. P. "Dutch" Hamann led the city in a major growth campaign. The city annexed adjacent areas, such as Alviso and Cambrian Park, providing large areas for suburbs. An anti-growth reaction to the effects of rapid development emerged in the 1970s, championed by mayors Norman Mineta and Janet Gray Hayes. Despite establishing an urban growth boundary, development fees, and the incorporations of Campbell and Cupertino, development was not slowed, but rather directed into already-incorporated areas.