Santa Clara County, California
Santa Clara County | |
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Clockwise: Downtown San Jose skyline; Hillsides in Morgan Hill; Alviso, San Jose; View of Santa Clara Valley; Almaden Reservoir in South San Jose; Stanford University. | |
Interactive map of Santa Clara County | |
Location in the state of California | |
| Coordinates: 37°14′N 121°43′W / 37.233°N 121.717°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| Region | San Francisco Bay Area |
| Incorporated | February 18, 1850 |
| Named after | Mission Santa Clara de Asís, St. Clare of Assisi |
| County seat and largest city | San Jose |
| Government | |
| • Type | Council–CEO |
| • Body | Board of Supervisors |
| • Board President | Susan Ellenberg |
| • Board Vice President | Otto Lee |
| • Board of Supervisors | Supervisors
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| • Chief executive officer | James R. Williams, J.D. |
| Area | |
• Total | 1,304 sq mi (3,380 km2) |
| • Land | 1,290 sq mi (3,300 km2) |
| • Water | 14 sq mi (40 km2) |
| Highest elevation | 4,216 ft (1,285 m) |
| Population (2020) | |
• Total | 1,936,259 |
| • Rank | 6th in California |
| • Density | 1,500/sq mi (570/km2) |
| GDP | |
| • Total | $400.778 billion (2022) |
| Time zone | UTC−8 (Pacific) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−7 (Pacific Daylight Time) |
| Area codes | 408/669, 650 |
| FIPS code | 06-085 |
| GNIS feature ID | 277307 |
| Congressional districts | 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th |
| Website | santaclaracounty |
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Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Northern California.
The county seat and largest city with a population of 971,233 is San Jose, the 13th-most populous city in the nation, California's third-most populous city, and the most populous city in Northern California.
Home to Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County is an economic center for high technology, and had the third-highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world as of 2015 behind Zürich and Oslo, according to the Brookings Institution. Located on the southern coast of San Francisco Bay, the urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County contains most of the county's population. More recently, extensive droughts in California, further complicated by drainage of the Anderson reservoir within the county for seismic repairs, have strained the county's water security.
As of 2020, it has a median household income of $130,890, the third-highest household income of any county in the nation behind Loudoun County, Virginia and Falls Church, Virginia, and the highest of any county in the Western United States.