Mountain View is a city in
Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
. Named for its views of the
Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the
2020 census.
Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
, and is the location of many
high technology
High technology (high tech or high-tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or ...
companies. In 1956,
William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley ( ; February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American solid-state physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brat ...
established
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices in Silicon Valley. Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world's largest technology companies, including
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
and
Alphabet Inc.,
Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium (legally Unicode, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated and based in Mountain View, California, U.S. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was developed with the in ...
,
Intuit,
Applied Intuition, NASA Ames Research Center, and former or existing headquarters for
Symantec,
23andMe
23andMe Holding Co. is an American personal genomics and biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. It is best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva testing, sali ...
,
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...
,
Samsung
Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
,
Quora
Quora is an American social question-and-answer website and online knowledge market headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was founded on June 25, 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010. Users can post questions, answ ...
and
Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Synopsys sup ...
.
History

The fertile land between the
Santa Cruz Mountains and the shores of the southern
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
once supported multiple villages of the indigenous
Ohlone people. Spanish missionaries utilized the land for sheep pastures.
The Mexican land grant of
Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was given in 1842 by
Alta California
Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva California () among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but was made a separat ...
Governor
Juan Alvarado to Francisco Estrada. This grant was later passed on to
Mariano Castro, who sold half of the land to Martin Murphy Jr.
Eventually, the former land grant was developed as the cities of Mountain View and
Sunnyvale.
The southwest shore of San Francisco Bay was settled by European-Americans in 1852 as a stagecoach station. This was after the United States acquired California. By the early 1900s, it was a shipping point for fruit and grain, as well as a center of religious book publishing.
The early pioneers were commonly buried at the old cemetery between Mercy & Church, off Castro Street. This is now the site of the present city library and park, known as Pioneer Park.
Residents
Reverend Henry Merrill Henderson, born in Maryland, arrived here at age 35 with his family in 1852; he was meeting relatives: the Ricketts and others who had migrated from
Missouri
Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
and
Kentucky
Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
. He was the first Baptist minister in town. He soon rode a circuit for preaching, going by horseback to Half-Moon Bay and
McCarthysville for services.
Later that year, Seligman Weilheimer and his brother Samuel immigrated from Dossenheim,
Baden, Germany. They settled on the next plot, and in 1856 built the first big general merchandise store in the settlement.
William Bubb bought to farm in October 1851; he became a leader in town and died there in 1864. His heirs' descendants prospered, marrying into other pioneer families.
Advent of local aerospace and electronics industries
The U.S. Navy's adjacent Moffett Field Complex was constructed beginning after 1931; its development attracted many workers and it brought many economic opportunities. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the population grew significantly with the development of regional aerospace and electronics industries. Between 1950 and 1960, the population grew from 6,563 to 30,889, an increase of 370.7%.
Between 1929 and 1994,
Moffett Field Naval Air Station operated in Mountain View. In 1940, the city was the base of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now the NASA Ames Research Center), which had a strong influence on the development of aerospace and electronics industries.
Current economic climate
Today, high technology is the foundation of the local economy. Few remnants are visible of the city's agricultural past.
In 1990, Kevin Duggan began his position as city manager. He built a relationship with Google, Inc., and issued a long-term lease to it and other technology companies. As of 2014, those leases generate over $5 million per year in city revenue. The Castro Street downtown area also benefited from a special tax district.
In 2016, the city's voters approved a
rent control
Rent regulation is a system of laws for the rental market of dwellings, with controversial effects on affordability of housing and tenancies. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves:
*Price controls, limits on the rent that a landlord ...
ordinance.
Geography
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (2.26%) is water.
The city borders
Palo Alto
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
and the
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
to the north,
Los Altos to the south, and
Moffett Federal Airfield and
Sunnyvale to the east.
Mountain View is located in the south-eastern and south-western section of the San Francisco Peninsula, at the north end of
State Route 85, where it meets
U.S. Route 101.
State Route 82 follows the route of the historic
El Camino Real through Mountain View. The city is bounded to the north by the
Bay, northeast by
Palo Alto
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
, to the south and southwest by
Los Altos, and to the east by
Sunnyvale and
Moffett Federal Airfield.
The
Santa Cruz Mountains, the origin of the city's name, lie to the west. This range separates Mountain View from the Pacific Ocean and, together with the Diablo Range to the south-east, form the
Santa Clara Valley.
Neighborhoods
Most of Mountain View consists of residential neighborhoods. Business parks are located mostly in the North Shoreline neighborhood, north of Highway 101.
The Blossom Valley neighborhood comprises five smaller neighborhoods: Springer Meadows, Varsity Park, Blossom Valley Estates, Springer Trees, and Gest Ranch subdivision known as Miramonte Oaks which borders Los Altos. This would be one of the more exclusive areas, this development was built in 1963 to about 1965. The other neighborhood's
ranch-style housing were built in the 1950s and 1960s on orchard land.
The Cuernavaca neighborhood is located off Crestview Drive near the Sunnyvale border. This neighborhood used to be the location of a cherry orchard, and later a nine-hole golf course and swim club before it was turned into housing, which was completed in 1989.
Most of the housing in Cuernavaca is Spanish-style, with red tiled roofs.
The
Monta Loma neighborhood is located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway.
Currently Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style
mid-century modern
Mid-century modern (MCM) is a movement in interior design, product design, graphic design, architecture and urban development that was present in all the world, but more popular in North America, Brazil and Europe from roughly 1945 to 197 ...
houses by
Joseph Eichler
Joseph Leopold Eichler (June 25, 1900 – July 1, 1974) was a 20th-century post-war American real estate developer known for developing distinctive residential Subdivision (land), subdivisions of mid-century modern style tract housing in Califo ...
,
John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.
Hazardous waste
Due to its history as a center for semiconductor manufacturing, Mountain View has seven sites on the
Environmental Protection Agency's Final
National Priorities List (NPL), a list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial action financed under the federal
Superfund
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
program. The sites were formerly used by companies including
Fairchild Semiconductor,
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
,
Raytheon
Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...
, CTS Printex Inc., Spectra-Physics, Jasco Chemical,
GTE
GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...
and
Teledyne. These seven sites make up a portion of the 22 NPL sites in Santa Clara County, which are included in the total of 94 sites in California.
Climate
Mountain View has a
warm-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...
(
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
''Csb'': dry-summer subtropical). Summers are warm and dry, while winters are cool and wet. However, both summers and winters are somewhat moderated due to its relative proximity to the Pacific, although it has a lesser maritime influence than San Francisco further north on the peninsula.
Economy
Mountain View is one of the major cities that make up
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
, and has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered there or with a large presence. As of 2024, major tech companies such as
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
and
Intuit were headquartered in Mountain View.
After voting to increase the minimum wage incrementally in 2015, in December 2017, the Mountain View City Council implemented a mandatory $15 minimum wage, to apply to employees who work two or more hours a week.
At the start of 2018, Mountain View raised its minimum wage to $15. Starting on January 1, 2019, the minimum wage was to be "adjusted annually based on the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose regional Consumer Price Index."
A proposal to slow down the rate of the wage increases by a year was defeated in a City Council meeting on December 4, 2018. Subsequently, on December 30, 2018, it was announced that Mountain View's minimum wage would rise to $15.65 on January 1, 2019, with the increase delayed by one year for companies with 25 or fewer employees. As of January 2024, the minimum wage in Mountain View is $18.75 per hour.
Top employers
According to the city's 2024
annual comprehensive financial report, the largest employers in the city are:
Demographics
2020 census
As of the
2020 census, there were 82,376 people and 34,423 households, and 19,585 families residing in the city. The
population density
Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
was There were 37,295 housing units.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mountain View had an unemployment rate of 5.0% in August 2013.
It had a female population of 47.8 percent and a male population of 52.2 percent. Persons under five were 6.4 percent, persons under 18 were 20.3 percent, and persons aged 65 and older were 11.1 percent in 2020. In 2022, 5.4 percent of people in Mountain View were living below the poverty line. Of the citizens over the age of sixteen, 72.9 percent were employed in the labor force, while 27.1 percent were not.
2010 census
As of the
2010 census, there were 74,066 people, households, and families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 31,957 housing units.
145 (0.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 120 (0.2%) were institutionalized. There were 31,957 households, out of which 8,731 (27.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,806 (43.2%) were
opposite-sex married couples living together, 2,456 (7.7%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,253 (3.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,928 (6.0%)
unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 280 (0.9%)
same-sex married couples or partnerships. 10,961 households (34.3%) were made up of individuals, and 2,471 (7.7%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31. There were 17,515
families (54.8% of all households); the average family size was 3.01. The population was spread out, with 14,594 people (19.7%) under the age of 18, 5,401 people (7.3%) aged 18 to 24, 28,577 people (38.6%) aged 25 to 44, 17,647 people (23.8%) aged 45 to 64, and 7,846 people (10.6%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 103.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 103.5 males. There were 33,881 housing units at an average density of , of which 13,332 (41.7%) were owner-occupied, and 18,625 (58.3%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.4%. 32,002 people (43.2% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units, and 41,799 people (56.4%) lived in rental housing units.

According to the Santa Clara County Homeless Census and Survey, the number of homeless individuals in Mountain View increased 51% from 2015 to 2017, with 276 homeless individuals in 2015, and 416 in 2017.
In August 2017, the ''Mercury News'' reported that Mountain View had seen RVs and recreational vehicles become the choice of residence for many working poor in the city. The city's communications coordinator called it a "new" situation, noting that many of the residents living in RVs were working up to three jobs, and that affordable housing was hard to come by in the city.
In December 2017, Google received approval to build nearly 10,000 new units of housing near its future campus in the city.
2000 census
As of the
2000 census, there were 70,708 people, 31,242 households, and 15,902 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 32,432 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 63.77%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 20.67%
Asian, 18.26%
Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or
Latino (of any race), 2.53%
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.39%
Native American, 0.26%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 8.32% from
other races, and 4.07% from two or more races.
There were 31,242 households, out of which 23.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.0% were
married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 7.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 49.1% were non-families. 35.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.97.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 18.0% under the age of 18, 8.3% from 18 to 24, 43.4% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.9 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $69,362, and the median income for a family was $80,379. Males had a median income of $64,585 versus $44,358 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the city was $39,693. About 3.6% of families and 6.8% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 7.2% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.
Arts and culture
Points of interest
Downtown

Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the
Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with
El Camino Real in the south. The transit center links the
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a commuter rail line in California, serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose, California, San Jose at the Tamien station with weekday r ...
commuter rail and
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a Special district (United States), special district responsible for public transit services, Congestion management agen ...
(VTA) light rail and bus systems.
Four blocks with a concentration of restaurants, cafes, and shops extend south from the downtown station. The
Michelin Guide
The ''Michelin Guides'' ( ; ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The ''Guide'' awards up to three Michelin star (classification), stars for excellence to a select few restaurants ...
-starred restaurant Chez TJ is located a block from Castro Street on Villa Street. Tied House, located next door, was one of the first brewpubs in the Bay Area, and was a popular stop in downtown until it closed in 2019.
The core of downtown is the plaza shared by City Hall, the
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts (MVCPA) and the Mountain View Public Library. The plaza is used for many community gatherings and events, and features a collection of public art. Peninsula Youth Theatre and
TheatreWorks are among the home companies of the MVCPA. The City Hall and MVCPA complex, designed by William Turnbull of San Francisco, opened in 1991. Behind those buildings is Pioneer Park, formerly the site of Mountain View's first cemetery.
The Mountain View Police Department is located two blocks away from Castro Street on Villa Street.
Since 1971, the city has held the annual Mountain View Art & Wine Festival on Castro Street by closing down the street to traffic for two days. There is a farmers' market in the Caltrain parking lot every Sunday morning. Every summer, once a month, the city celebrates Thursday Night Live by closing off Castro street to cars and providing live music events and car shows on Castro Street.
The entire length of El Camino in Mountain View is a low-density commercial area.
Buildings

The
Computer History Museum has a collection of computing artifacts.
The
Shoreline Amphitheater is a large outdoor venue for large concerts and shows.
Moffett Field is a joint civil-military federal airfield located between northern Mountain View and northern
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States.
Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real and U.S. Route 101 in California, Highway 1 ...
. It is home to the
Air National Guard
The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia (United States), militia of each U.S. ...
. Its
hangar
A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...
s for
blimp
A non-rigid airship, commonly called a blimp (Help:IPA/English, /blɪmp/), is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid airship, semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on th ...
s and
rigid airship
A rigid airship is a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the Aerostat, envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps (also called pres ...
s (now mostly vacant) make unique landmarks for motorists on Highway 101.
NASA Ames Research Center is a research facility adjacent to Moffett, and also houses a gift-shop NASA visitor center.
The
Mountain View Adobe, a small events center on Moffett Boulevard, is listed in the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
Seminary
St. Joseph Parish was founded in 1905, and survived the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...
, only to burn down in 1928.
St. Joseph's Seminary operated here between 1924 and 1991. The current St. Joseph church building was built in 1929.
Library

Mountain View has one central public library, the Mountain View Public Library, which has video, music, books, and access to the Internet. The library provides outreach services through the bookmobile and S.O.S. volunteer program to those in Mountain View who are unable to come to the main branch. The building was built in 1997. The second floor of the library has a special collection in a room devoted to the history of Mountain View, which features a portrait of Crisanto Castro, for whom the major downtown thoroughfare is named. Displayed outside the library is a piece of the
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...
, installed in 2013.
Parks and recreation

The largest park in the city is
Shoreline Park, which was built on a landfill and runs along the Bay north of
U.S. Route 101. It includes
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Shoreline Golf Course, as well as
Rengstorff House, which is listed in the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
. On the north side, facing the Bay, the park includes tidal ponds and mudflats, accessible via pedestrian and bicycle paths. The
San Francisco Bay Trail runs along Shoreline Park.
Stevens Creek runs through Mountain View from the south and empties into the Bay in Shoreline Park. A paved pedestrian and bicycle path, the Stevens Creek Trail, runs alongside the creek for nearly its entire distance in Mountain View. Stevens Creek is home to coyotes, gray foxes, black-tailed deer, butterflies, dragonflies, and 150 species of birds, as well as shorebirds that feed in the mudflat. The shorebirds can be seen at low tide.
Other parks include:

* Eagle Park, which holds a public swimming pool, dog-friendly lawn, and World War II
memorial
A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...
* Cuesta Park, a sprawling park with tennis courts, barbecue areas, and playgrounds, near El Camino Hospital and the YMCA
* Rengstorff Park, home to a public swimming pool, community center, skate park, fenced dog park, and multiple playgrounds and picnic areas
* Charleston Park, a five-acre park located near the
Googleplex. The park was designed by SWA Group who received an ASLA Centennial Medallion in 1999 for their work.
Government
Mountain View has a
council-manager government system. An executive city manager is in charge of several departments, while the city council, supported by several boards, commissions, and committees, is the legislature responsible for the ordinances of the city code. The executive in turn enforces the code and promulgates administrative regulations to execute it. The city clerk and attorney perform supporting roles. The Community Development Department is the agency responsible for planning and zoning.
State and federal representatives
In the
state legislature, Mountain View is in , and in . In the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...
, Mountain View is in .
City council
Mountain View is represented by a 7-member council elected at-large. The mayor is a council member appointed by their peers each year. The City Council maintains a number o
Council Advisory Bodies, which provide input on a range of city matters pertaining to development, land use and historical preservation.
Education
Public
The public elementary (Bubb, Castro, Imai, Landels,
Mistral,
Monta Loma, Stevenson, Theuerkauf, and Vargas) and middle schools (Crittenden and Graham) are governed by the
Mountain View-Whisman School District. Springer Elementary, although located within the borders of Mountain View, is governed by the
Los Altos School District. The public high schools are governed by the
Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District and consist of
Alta Vista High School,
Mountain View High School, and
Los Altos High School. Mountain View High and Los Altos High each contain approximately 50% Los Altos residents and 50% Mountain View residents. Some Mountain View residents attend Almond Elementary and Egan Junior High in the Los Altos School District.
Mountain View taxed a large portion of its most valuable commercial and industrial properties in the Shoreline Regional Park Community at very low relative levels, and until the creation of a joint-powers agreement (JPA) in 2006, none of those property taxes reached the local schools. After the creation of the JPA, the Shoreline Regional Park Community shared less than $1 million per year with the elementary and high school districts.
In 2008, a citizen-supported parcel tax, largely aimed at reducing class sizes, was renewed in an overwhelmingly positive vote. The current ratio of students to full-time-equivalent teachers in the Mountain View public elementary schools is 20.4 : 1.
Private
Notable private schools in Mountain View include:
Khan Lab School, a
laboratory school associated with
Khan Academy;
Saint Francis High School, a
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
secondary school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
;
German International School of Silicon Valley (GISSV), a
PK-12 German-English bilingual international school; and
Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley, a PK-8 Chinese-English bilingual international school.
Media
The ''
Mountain View Voice'' is a local newspaper, which began publishing in 1993.
Infrastructure
Roads
Major thoroughfares that feed through the city include:
*
SR-237
*
SR-85
*
US-101
*
County Route G6
* El Camino Real (
SR 82)
Public transportation

The
Downtown Mountain View Station is the transit center for the city, connecting the public commuter rail, light rail, bus, and private shuttle systems. It is one of the busiest transit centers in the county, behind Milpitas, Palo Alto and San Jose.
Rail service
Mountain View is served by the
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a commuter rail line in California, serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose, California, San Jose at the Tamien station with weekday r ...
commuter rail system, which runs from
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
to
Gilroy. The two Caltrain stations in the city are the Mountain View Station and the
San Antonio Station. Caltrain provides all classes of service in Mountain View, with Baby Bullet trains stopping at the main downtown station.
The city is also served by the
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a Special district (United States), special district responsible for public transit services, Congestion management agen ...
(VTA), which operates various bus lines and a
light rail system connecting Mountain View with other points in
Santa Clara County. There are a total of four stations in the city on the
Orange Line VTA
light rail
Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...
line, with Downtown Mountain View Station serving as the northern terminus, while the other three stations are
Whisman,
Middlefield, and
Bayshore/NASA.
Bus service
MVgo is a free shuttle service that runs three routes throughout Mountain View beginning and ending at Downtown Mountain View Station during morning and evening commute hours. Many large local employers (including
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
Apple Inc., and NASA
Ames Research Center) operate employee shuttles that stop at the Downtown Mountain View Station. There is also a free community shuttle bus that serves 50 stops in a loop within Mountain View, which connects the major shopping areas with the residential neighborhoods.
VTA operates several regularly scheduled routes within the city, including Routes 21, 22/522, 40, 51, and 52. VTA also has a bus yard in Mountain View, near Shoreline Blvd and US-101.
Air travel
The nearest major commercial airport is
San Jose International Airport (SJC), located about 11 miles (15 minutes) from downtown Mountain View.
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and
Oakland International Airport (OAK) also serve Mountain View and often have more international flights available than SJC.
Moffett Federal Airfield is located just north of Mountain View, but it is restricted to government, military, and private use. The nearest
general aviation
General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...
airport is the
Palo Alto Airport.
Utilities
Power in the city is operated by
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered at Kaiser Center, in Oakland, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 million households in the norther ...
.
The city is one of the region's largest users of
Recycled Water, mostly for landscaping in the area North of US-101 covering Shoreline Park and the Google campus. Mountain View uses about 460,000 gallons of recycled water daily, with plans to expand that usage to up to 1.4 million gallons each day.
On August 16, 2006, after over a year of test deployments, Google announced that its implementation of free
IEEE 802.11g wireless service for all of the city was fully operational.
On February 19, 2014, the City of Mountain View and
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
announced a new connectivity plan for residents, to replace the existing system. Service was to be available along the downtown corridor of Mountain View, primarily on Castro Street. Other areas to be covered included Rengstorff Park, the Mountain View Public Library, Senior, Community, and Teen Centers.
Public safety

The Mountain View Fire Department maintains five stations, and is responsible for fire protection and emergency medical services.
The Mountain View Police Department maintains patrol, traffic enforcement, detective, K9 and SWAT services for the city, and participates in several task forces, including the Regional Allied Computer Crime Task Force (REACT) and the Regional Auto Theft Task Force (RAATF).
Sister cities
The Mountain View Sister City Affiliation was incorporated in 1974 as an independent non-profit governed by a board of directors. Mountain View is affiliated with the cities of
*
Iwata, Shizuoka, Japan
*
Hasselt
Hasselt (, , ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg in the Flemish Region of Belgium.
As of 1 August 2023, Hasselt had a total population of 80,846. The old ...
, Belgium
The rock garden in Pioneer Park was a gift from the sister city of Iwata to celebrate the completion of Mountain View's City Hall building. The rock garden is located near the Mountain View Public Library.
Notable people
Business
*
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
, technology entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Apple, lived in Mountain View during his childhood
*
Salman Khan, Khan Academy online educator, resides in Mountain View
*
Jan Koum, CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp, grew up in Mountain View
Entertainment
*
Alex Brightman, actor and singer
*
Carroll Clark, seven-time
Academy Award for Best Art Direction nominee
*
Laura Chavez, blues, soul, and rhythm and blues guitarist, songwriter and record producer
*
Assaf Cohen, supporting actor, ''
Heroes'' and ''
Entourage''
*
Kurt Kuenne, filmmaker and composer best known for the documentary ''
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father''
Media
*
Dave Finocchio, co-founder of
Bleacher Report
''Bleacher Report'' (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sports and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London. ''Bleacher Report'' was acquired by Time Warner's Turner B ...
*
Doris Gates, author and librarian
*
Edward Michael Keating (1925–2003), American publisher, journalist, lawyer; founder of ''
Ramparts'', member of the
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...
movement.
*
Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist, filmmaker, immigration rights activist, and namesake of new Mountain View elementary school
*
Andy Weir, wrote ''The Martian'' book and eventual film, while living in Mountain View
Politicians
*
Hugh Fate, dentist and Alaska state representative
Sports
*
Jabri Abdur-Rahim,
college basketball
College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...
player for the
Georgia Bulldogs
*
Mark Baena, soccer player
*
Tully Banta-Cain, two-time
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
champion
*
Josh Cohen, soccer player
*
Brandon Crawford, professional baseball player in MLB, played for the
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
*
Paula Creamer, professional golfer and formerly
Women's World Golf Rankings number two player
*
Dan Green, powerlifter, world record holder in 220 and 242 lbs weight classes
*
Mark Keil, five-time ATP tennis doubles champion
*
Mark Leonard, former left fielder for the
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
and
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles (also known as the O's) are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. As one of the America ...
*
Adam Peters, football scout and executive
*
Kenny Roberts Jr., 2000
500cc Road Racing World Champion
*
Bianca Sierra, player for
Mexico women's national football team
See also
*
Timeline of Mountain View, California
*
St. Joseph's Seminary (Mountain View, California)
References
Bibliography
External links
*
{{Authority control
1902 establishments in California
Butterfield Overland Mail in California
Cities in Santa Clara County, California
Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area
Incorporated cities and towns in California
Populated coastal places in California
Populated places established in 1902
Silicon Valley