San Jose

About San Jose

Founded in 1777, San Jose is California’s first civilian settlement and the site of the first state capitol. As the hub of Silicon Valley, it’s the largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in California with population close to 900,000.

There are endless things to do and places to visit in various pockets of San Jose. The Winchester Mystery House, The Tech Museum of Innovation, Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, Santana Row, and HP Pavilion are just some of the sites to see. The variety of food and dining experiences is also abundant. For an all-around nice place to hang out, check out San Pedro Square Market (SPSM) in downtown San Jose.

Since San Jose is such a large city, there are various neighborhoods in the community that have different schools and local cultures. Areas like Willow Glen, Cambrian, Evergreen, and Almaden Valley have distinct neighborhoods that many people know, but the rest of San Jose can typically be classified as West San Jose, East San Jose, Central San Jose, and South San Jose. Specifically, West San Jose is distinct because many of the homes in the area are zoned into the Moreland Elementary School District or the Cupertino School District, which have much higher rankings than the nearby San Jose Unified School District. Students in this area will attend high school in either the Campbell Union High School District or the Fremont Union High School District.

In addition to Google’s plans to build a large complex in San Jose, other companies with offices in San Jose include (among many others) Adobe, Qualcomm Atheros, SunPower, Cavium, Malwarebytes, BEA Systems, Broadcom, and Brocade Communications.

Neighborhoods

With San Jose being such a large city, it is divided into sections as noted above. Among others, San Jose neighborhoods include Japantown, Rose Garden, Midtown San Jose, Downtown San Jose, Willow Glen, Naglee Park, Burbank, Winchester, Alviso, East Foothills, Alum Rock, Communications Hill, Little Portugal, Blossom Valley, Cambrian, Almaden Valley, Silver Creek Valley, Evergreen Valley, Edenvale, Santa Teresa, Seven Trees, Coyote Valley, and Berryessa.

Learn more at www.sanjoseca.gov.