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 19th century, print publications used the spelling 'San José' for both the city and its eponymous township. San Jose is named after el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe ( Spanish for 'the Town of Saint Joseph on the Guadalupe'), the city's predecessor, which was eventually located in the area of what is now the Plaza de César Chávez. By the 1990s, San Jose had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries, making it California's fastest-growing economy. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California. Industries further accelerated the transition from an agricultural center to an urbanized metropolitan area.

The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics Following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 1960s. After California achieved statehood two years later, San Jose became the state's first capital. Following the American Conquest of California during the Mexican–American War, the territory was ceded to the United States in 1848. It then became a part of Mexico in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. 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 the world's largest overseas Vietnamese population, a Hispanic community that makes up over 40% of the city's residents, and historic Japanese and Portuguese neighborhoods.īefore the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was 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 sparked Mayor Tom McEnery to adopt the city the motto of 'Capital of Silicon Valley' in 1988. 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 San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 9.7 million people respectively, the third-most populous city in California (after Los Angeles and San Diego and ahead of San Francisco), and the tenth-most populous in the United States. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. San Jose, officially San José ( / ˌ s æ n h oʊ ˈ z eɪ, - ˈ s eɪ/ Spanish: Spanish for ' Saint Joseph'), is a major city in the U.S.

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