CA · Santa Clara County · 1,013,240 (2020) · 10th-largest US city · Pacific time
San Jose, California
San Jose lies at the southern end of San Francisco Bay in the Santa Clara Valley, the heart of Silicon Valley. It is the largest city in the Bay Area and the tenth-largest in the United States.
- State
- California
- County
- Santa Clara County
- Population (2020)
- 1,013,240
- Rank
- 10th in the US
- Coordinates
- 37.34°N, 121.89°W
- Time zone
- Pacific
- Metro area
- about 2.0 million
- State capital
- No – Sacramento
Where San Jose is
San Jose is at 37.34°N, 121.89°W in Santa Clara County, of which it is the county seat. The city covers about 180 square miles of the flat Santa Clara Valley, about 80 feet above sea level near downtown, hemmed in by the Diablo Range to the east (Mount Hamilton, 4,265 ft, is inside the city limits) and the Santa Cruz Mountains to the southwest. Its northern edge reaches the salt marshes at the south tip of San Francisco Bay. San Francisco is 50 miles north up the peninsula, Oakland 40 miles north on the east bay side, and Sacramento, the state capital, 120 miles northeast.
Population and rank
The 2020 Census counted 1,013,240 residents, ranking San Jose 10th among US cities and third in California after Los Angeles and San Diego. It has been larger than San Francisco since the 1990 count, though it is less dense and covers four times the land. The San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan area (Santa Clara and San Benito counties) has about 2.0 million people; it is usually grouped with the San Francisco–Oakland metro into a combined Bay Area of roughly 9.7 million. The city's population fell slightly between 2020 and 2022, one of the few large cities to do so.
Geography
- San Francisco Bay — the shallow south bay at Alviso is fringed with salt ponds and tidal marsh, much of it now wildlife refuge.
- Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek — both flow north through the city to the bay; the Guadalupe passes through downtown and floods periodically.
- Mountains — the Diablo Range with Mount Hamilton and Lick Observatory to the east; the Santa Cruz Mountains and Loma Prieta (3,786 ft) to the southwest, on the San Andreas Fault.
- Valley — the Santa Clara Valley was orchard country until the 1960s; the Coyote Valley at the south end of the city is still largely open.
Nearest large cities
San Francisco and Oakland are within an hour when traffic allows; Sacramento is two hours northeast. Distances are approximate road miles from downtown San Jose.
| City | State | Road distance (mi) | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | CA | 50 | NW |
| Sacramento | CA | 120 | NE |
| Fresno | CA | 150 | SE |
| Los Angeles | CA | 340 | SE |
| Portland | OR | 680 | N |
Is San Jose the state capital?
No — but it was the first. San Jose served as California's first state capital from 1849 to 1851, when the legislature moved to Vallejo, then Benicia, and finally in 1854 to Sacramento. San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County. It is the largest city in Northern California and in the Bay Area, ahead of San Francisco by about 140,000.
Related maps
- California map — the state with its 58 counties.
- Sacramento — the state capital; San Jose was the first.
- US cities map.
- US coastlines and Sierra Nevada maps.
- Nearby cities: San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno.
- Pacific division · Pacific Time Zone.