Santa Clara ( ;

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

for " Saint Clare") is a city in

Santa Clara County, California 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 United States census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

, the city was founded by the Spanish in 1777 with the establishment of

Mission Santa Clara de Asís Mission Santa Clara de Asís () is a Spanish mission in the city of Santa Clara, California. The mission, which was the eighth in California, was founded on January 12, 1777, by the Franciscans. Named for Saint Clare of Assisi, who founded th ...

under the leadership of

Junípero Serra Saint Junípero Serra Ferrer (; ; November 24, 1713August 28, 1784), popularly known simply as Junipero Serra, was a Spanish Roman Catholic, Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Francis ...

. Santa Clara is located in the center 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 home to the headquarters of companies such as

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 ...

Advanced Micro Devices Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a Information technology, hardware and F ...

(AMD), and

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

. It is also home to

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...

, the oldest university in California, and

Levi's Stadium Levi's Stadium is an American football stadium located in Santa Clara, California, United States, just west of the much larger city of San Jose, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has served as the home venue for the National Football League (N ...

, the home of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...

, and

California's Great America California's Great America is an amusement park located in Santa Clara, California, United States. Owned and operated by Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, it originally opened in 1976 as one of two parks built by the Marriott Corporation. ...

Park. Santa Clara is bordered by San Jose on almost every side, except for

Sunnyvale 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 and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north, ...

and

Cupertino Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 60,38 ...

to the west.

History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 18th century, the Tamien tribe of the

Ohlone The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the l ...

nation of

Indigenous Californian Indigenous peoples of California, commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians, are a diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and afte ...

s had inhabited the area for several millennia.

Spanish period

The first European to visit the valley was

José Francisco Ortega José Francisco Ortega (1734 – February 1798) was a New Spanish soldier and early settler of Alta California. He joined the military at the age of twenty-one and rose to the rank of sergeant by the time he joined the Portola expedition in 1769. ...

in 1769. The Spanish began to colonize California with 21 missions, and the

was founded in 1777.

Mexican period

The

Battle of Santa Clara The Battle of Santa Clara was a series of events in late December 1958 that led to the capture of the Cuban city of Santa Clara by rebel forces under the command of Che Guevara at the end of the Cuban Revolution. A decisive victory for the re ...

, one of the last battles of the

Conquest of California The Conquest of California, also known as the Conquest of Alta California or the California Campaign, was a military campaign during the Mexican–American War carried out by the United States in Alta California (modern-day California), then part ...

, was fought between a contingent of

Californios Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

, led by Francisco Sánchez, against the invading American forces.

American period

In 1851,

Santa Clara College Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...

was established on the grounds of the original Mission. In 1852, Santa Clara was incorporated as a town; it became state-chartered by 1862. For the next century, the economy centered on agriculture since orchards and vegetables were thriving in the fertile soil. By the beginning of the 20th century, the population had reached 5,000 and stayed about the same for many years. In 1905, the first public high-altitude flights by humans were made over Santa Clara in gliders designed by

John J. Montgomery John Joseph Montgomery (February 15, 1858 – October 31, 1911) was an American inventor, physicist, engineer, and professor at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, who is best known for his invention of controlled heavier-than-air ...

. The

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. Its roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor ...

, which sprouted around 1960, changed the city and surrounding Valley of Heart's Delight; little of its agricultural past remains. Santa Clara's first medical hospital was built in 1963. This structure, on Kiely Boulevard, was replaced in 2007 with a new Kaiser Permanente medical center located on Lawrence Expressway at Homestead Road. Santa Clara was also home to a major mental health facility,

Agnews State Hospital Agnews Developmental Center were two psychiatric and medical care facilities, located in Santa Clara, California and San Jose, California respectively. History In 1885, the center, originally known as "The Great Asylum for the Insane", was estab ...

. According to the National Park Service, more than 100 persons were killed at this site in the 1906 earthquake. The site is the former home to

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and 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 ...

. In 1963, Santa Clara City Council voted to knock down the eight-block grid of Downtown Santa Clara, in order to receive federal funding for

urban renewal Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...

. Since June 2016, there has been a grassroots movement to rebuild Santa Clara's historic downtown. The grassroots citizen group i
Reclaiming Our Downtown

Geography

Santa Clara is drained by three seasonal creeks, all of which empty into the southern portion of

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 ...

; these creeks are San Tomas Aquino Creek,

Saratoga Creek Saratoga Creek is a north-northeast flowing creek in Santa Clara County, California, that flows to the Guadalupe Slough and south San Francisco Bay. History Saratoga Creek was originally called Arroyo Quito and then Campbell Creek after imm ...

, and Calabazas Creek. There are some significant biological resources within the city including

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

for the

burrowing owl The burrowing owl (''Athene cunicularia''), also called the shoco, is a small, long-legged, primarily terrestrial—though not flightless—species of owl native to the open landscapes of North and South America. They are typically found in gra ...

, a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of special concern in California due to reduction in habitat from urban development during the latter 20th century. This owl uses burrows created by

ground squirrel Ground squirrels are rodents of the squirrel family (Sciuridae) that generally live on the ground or in burrows, rather than in trees like the tree squirrels. The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones ar ...

s and prefers generally level grasslands and even disturbed areas.

Coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

s have also become active in the area in recent years. According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, the city covers an area of , all of it land.

Climate

The average daily temperatures in July range from to . Winters are mild, with the mean daily temperatures in January ranging from to . Most of the annual rainfall comes in the winter months; the summer months are generally rainless.

Demographics

2020

2010

The 2010 United States census reported that Santa Clara had a population of 116,468. The population density was . The ethnic makeup of Santa Clara was 52,359 (45.0%)

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 ...

, 3,154 (2.7%)

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 ...

, 579 (0.5%) Native American, 43,889 (37.7%) Asian (13.6% Indian, 6.9% Chinese, 6.2% Filipino, 3.9% Vietnamese, 3.0% Korean, 1.5% Japanese), 651 (0.6%)

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 ...

, 9,624 (8.3%) from other races, and 6,212 (5.3%) from two or more races. There were 22,598 people (19.4%) who identified as

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; 14.6% of Santa Clara's population was of Mexican ancestry. The Census reported that 113,272 people (97.3% of the population) lived in households, 2,860 (2.5%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 336 (0.3%) were institutionalized. There were 43,021 households, out of which 14,477 (33.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 21,817 (50.7%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 4,081 (9.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 2,038 (4.7%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,146 (5.0%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 312 (0.7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 10,906 households (25.4%) were made up of individuals, and 2,945 (6.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63. There were 27,936

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(64.9% of all households); the average family size was 3.18. The age distribution of the population was as follows: 24,774 people (21.3%) were under the age of 18, 12,511 people (10.7%) aged 18 to 24, 41,876 people (36.0%) aged 25 to 44, 25,628 people (22.0%) aged 45 to 64, and 11,679 people (10.0%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34.1 years. For every 100 females, there were 102.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100.9 males. There were 45,147 housing units at an average density of , of which 19,747 (45.9%) were owner-occupied, and 23,274 (54.1%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.6%. 53,694 people (46.1% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 59,578 people (51.2%) lived in rental housing units.

Economy

Santa Clara owns and operates an electric utility called Silicon Valley Power. In 2005, Silicon Valley Power brought online the Donald Von Raesfeld (DVR) Power Plant. The new

combined cycle A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...

gas turbine plant produces 147 megawatts of electricity for the city and its residents. As a result, the going rate for electricity in Santa Clara is considerably cheaper than that offered by Northern California's dominant utility,

Pacific Gas and Electric 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 ...

. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD),

Affymetrix Affymetrix is now Applied Biosystems, a brand of DNA microarray products sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific that originated with an American biotechnology research and development and manufacturing company of the same name. The Santa Clara, Calif ...

Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American global company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for laboratories. Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packar ...

Applied Materials Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor (integrated circuit) chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and ...

Arista Networks Arista Networks, Inc. (formerly Arastra) is an American computer networking company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company designs and sells Multilayer switch, multilayer network switches to deliver software-defined networking (SDN) ...

Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...

, Auditoria.AI,

Brillio Brillio is an Indian-owned company focused on digital technologies and big data analytics headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States. History Brillio was formed in 2014 when Collabera, an information technology (IT) recruiting an ...

Chegg Chegg, Inc., is an American Educational technology, education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services. The comp ...

Cloudera Cloudera, Inc. is an American data lake software company. History Cloudera, Inc. was formed on June 27, 2008 in Burlingame, California by Christophe Bisciglia, Amr Awadallah, Jeff Hammerbacher, and chief executive Mike Olson. Prior to Cloude ...

Coherent Coherence is, in general, a state or situation in which all the parts or ideas fit together well so that they form a united whole. More specifically, coherence, coherency, or coherent may refer to the following: Physics * Coherence (physics ...

FileMaker FileMaker is a cross-platform relational database application developed by Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple Inc. It integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface ( GUI) and security features, allowing users to visu ...

Hortonworks Hortonworks, Inc. was a data software company based in Santa Clara, California that developed and supported open-source software (primarily around Apache Hadoop) designed to manage big data and associated processing. Hortonworks software was use ...

Infoblox Infoblox, is a privately held IT automation and security company based in California's Silicon Valley. The company focuses on managing and identifying devices connected to networks—specifically for the Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host C ...

Intevac Intevac, Inc. is a producer of thin film deposition systems and equipment for making hard disk drives. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California in Silicon Valley. The company also has offices in China, Malaysia and Singapore. Founded in 1 ...

Marvell Technology Group Marvell Technology, Inc. is an American company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which develops and produces semiconductors and related technology. Founded in 1995, the company had more than 6,500 employees as of 2024, with over 10,000 ...

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online ...

Move Move or The Move may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Move (company), an American online real estate company * Move (electronics store), a defunct Australian electronics retailer * Daihatsu Move, a Japanese car * PlayStation Move, a motion ...

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

OmniVision Technologies OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, lap ...

Ooyala Ooyala (pronounced "oo-YAH-la") was a privately owned company focusing on video content workflow management systems. It began in 2007 as a venture-backed, privately held company founded by brothers Bismarck Lepe and Belsasar Lepe, and their col ...

Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is an American multinational cybersecurity company with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The core product is a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to ...

Rovi Corporation TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. Now operating as Xperi, the company is primarily involved in licensing ...

ServiceNow ServiceNow, Inc. is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California, that supplies a cloud computing platform for the creation and management of automated business workflows. It is used predominantly for the automation of informati ...

SVB Financial Group SVB Financial Group (SVB or SVBFG) is a financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. The company's main business unit was the commercial bank Silicon Valley Bank, until the bank failed in March 2023 after a bank run. The c ...

Trident Microsystems Trident Microsystems Inc. was an American fabless semiconductor company that became in the 1990s a well-known supplier of integrated circuits (commonly called "chips") for video display controllers used in video cards and on motherboards for d ...

and

Veritas Technologies Veritas Technologies LLC is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stora ...

are among the companies headquartered in Santa Clara. The North American offices of

Bandai Namco Entertainment is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game video game publisher, publisher, and the video game branch of the wider Bandai Namco Holdings group. Founded in 2006 as it is the successor to Namco's home and arcade video game ...

(formerly

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955. It operated video arcades and amusement parks globally, and produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets. Namco was one of the most influential c ...

) was in Santa Clara until its consolidation with its existing offices in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

Top employers

According to the city's 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:

Government

The current mayor of Santa Clara is Lisa M. Gillmor. Its city councilmembers are: Albert Gonzalez (District 1), Raj Chahal (District 2), Karen Hardy (District 3), Kevin Park (District 4), Suds Jain (District 5), and Kelly G. Cox (District 6). Santa Clara is represented in

California's 17th congressional district California's 17th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California that is currently represented by Ro Khanna. It is located in the Santa Clara Valley#San Francisco South Bay, South Bay and East Bay regions of ...

for the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the 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 Article One of th ...

, currently represented by . In the

California Legislature The California State Legislature is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of California, consisting of the California State Assembly (lower house with 80 members) and the California State Senate (upper house with 40 members). ...

, Santa Clara is part of

California's 10th State Senate district California's 10th senatorial district is one of 40 California California State Senate, State Senate districts. It is currently represented by California Democratic Party, Democrat Aisha Wahab of Hayward, California, Hayward. District profile ...

and

California's 26th State Assembly district California's 26th State Assembly district is one of 80 California State Assembly districts. It is currently represented by Democratbr>Patrick Ahrensof Sunnyvale, California. District profile The district is located in Santa Clara County. ...

, represented in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

by and in the Assembly by . The city operates the

Santa Clara City Library Santa Clara City Library is a public library in Santa Clara, California. There are currently three locations: the Mission Branch Library; the Northside Branch Library, which opened on August 9, 2014; and the (main) Central Park Library. History ...

, which is not part of the

Santa Clara County Library District The Santa Clara County Library District is a public library system for Santa Clara County headquartered in Campbell, California. The library serves the communities and cities of Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mi ...

Education

Santa Clara Unified School District The Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) is a public school district in Santa Clara County, California, United States that serves roughly 14,000 students from the cities of Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Cupertino. The distric ...

is the public school district that serves Santa Clara and small portions of Sunnyvale and North San Jose. The city is home to nineteen K–8, elementary, and high schools. Many of the schools are named for former farmers, ranchers, and other notable Santa Clara residents such as Bowers and Bracher elementary schools, Buchser Middle School, Wilcox High School, Santa Clara High School, and Mission Early College High School. A small part of the city however is served by

Cupertino High School Cupertino High School, colloquially referred to as "Tino", "CHS", is a four-year comprehensive public high school located near the Rancho Rinconada and Fairgrove neighborhoods of Cupertino, California, USA. The school serves mostly suburban res ...

and its feeder schools in the nearby town of its namesake. Private schools in Santa Clara include three Catholic schools operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose —

Saint Clare School Saint Clare School is a Roman Catholic elementary school operated by Saint Clare Parish in Santa Clara, California, in the United States. Founded in 1856, it is the second oldest continuously operating elementary school in California and serve ...

(the oldest elementary school in California), Saint Lawrence Elementary and Middle School, and Saint Justin School — and the Granada Islamic School (

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

school, grades K-12).

Higher education

Colleges and universities in Santa Clara include

(private Jesuit university), Mission College (public community college),

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located in Monterey Bay ...

Silicon Valley extension campus, and Golden State Baptist College (private Baptist college).

Culture

Santa Clara is also home to

, an amusement park currently operated by Cedar Fair, L.P. Nearby is the

Santa Clara Convention Center The Santa Clara Convention Center is located in northern Santa Clara, California. It serves as one of the large meeting and convention facilities in Silicon Valley, with of meeting space. It was built in 1986 and expanded in 2009. The conventio ...

, one of Silicon Valley's largest event and meeting venues. Santa Clara also offers several museums such as the

Intel Museum The Intel Museum located at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, United States, has exhibits of Intel's products and history as well as semiconductor technology in general. The museum is open weekdays except holidays. It is open t ...

Triton Museum of Art The Triton Museum of Art is a contemporary art museum located at 1505 Warburton Avenue in Santa Clara, California. History The museum was founded in 1965 in San Jose, California, by rancher, lawyer and art patron W. Robert Morgan and his wife ...

, and the Harris – Lass historical house. The Our Lady of Peace Shrine is notable for its statue which is visible from

Highway 101 Highway 101 was an American country music band founded in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. The initial lineup consisted of Paulette Carlson (lead vocals), Jack Daniels (guitar), Curtis Stone (bass guitar, vocals), and Scott "Cactus" Moser (drum ...

. The Mission City Center for Performing Arts is the city's venue for theatrical productions and entertainment.

Sports

The

Santa Clara Broncos The Santa Clara Broncos are athletic teams that represent Santa Clara University. The school colors are red and white. The nicknames for teams is The Broncos and the student fans are referred to as the "Ruff Riders". The Broncos compete in the ...

are the Division I NCAA athletic programs of

. Santa Clara sponsors 19 different teams, most of which compete in the

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting o ...

. The red and white of the Santa Clara Broncos is featured on the flag of the city, as is the Mission which lies at the heart of the campus. The George F. Haines International Swim Center is home and host to numerous local, regional, and international

competitive swimming Swimming is an individual or team racing sport that requires the use of one's entire body to move through water. The sport takes place in pools or open water (e.g., in a sea or lake). Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic ...

matches. The Santa Clara Vanguard, a competitive marching music organization, has been headquartered in Santa Clara since its inception. The organization runs and operates a

winter guard Winter guard (sometimes spelled "winterguard") is an indoor Color guard (flag spinning), color guard sport and performance art derived from military ceremonies. Modern winter guard is a competitive, performance-based activity which incorporates c ...

, an

indoor percussion ensemble An indoor percussion ensemble or indoor drumline is a type of marching ensemble consisting of battery and front ensemble instruments. It differs itself from a traditional percussion ensemble by not only on musical performance, but on theatrics ...

, and two

drum and bugle corps Drum and bugle corps is a name used to describe several related musical ensembles. * Drum and bugle corps (modern), a musical marching unit * Drum and bugle corps (classic), musical ensembles that descended from military bugle and drum units retur ...

, all of which compete across the country every year. All four ensembles have been very successful competitively, especially the two drum corps, one of which has won 6 Open Class titles and the other 7 World Class titles. The

football team has its headquarters and practice facilities in Santa Clara. On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, the 49ers announced their intention to move the team to Santa Clara in time for the fall 2014 season, after negotiations failed with the city of San Francisco to build a new stadium. Santa Clara will host multiple matches during the

2026 FIFA World Cup The 2026 FIFA World Cup, marketed as FIFA World Cup 26, will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup, the Anniversary#Latin-derived numerical names, quadrennial international men's Association football, soccer championship contested by the List of men's n ...

Transportation

Santa Clara has two major train stations: the

Santa Clara – Great America station Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christianity, Western Christian culture who is said to Christmas gift-bringer, bring gifts during the ...

and the Downtown Santa Clara station. Both stations are served by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''

Capitol Corridor The ''Capitol Corridor'' is a passenger train route in Northern California operated by Amtrak between San Jose, California, San Jose, in the Bay Area, and Auburn, California, Auburn, in the Sacramento Valley. The route is named after the two ...

'' train and the

Altamont Corridor Express The Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) is a commuter rail service in California, connecting Stockton and San Jose during peak hours only. ACE is named for the Altamont Pass, through which it runs. Service is managed by the San Joaquin Regional R ...

(ACE); the latter is also served by

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 ...

. The city is served by the

VTA light rail The VTA light rail system serves San Jose, California, San Jose and nearby cities in Santa Clara County, California. It is operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and has of network comprising three main lines on stan ...

system, which operates four stations: Reamwood station,

Old Ironsides station Old Ironsides station is a light rail station in Santa Clara, California operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) as part of the VTA light rail system. Old Ironsides station is served by the Orange Line and is the nort ...

, Great America station, and Lick Mill station. Santa Clara is located adjacent to

San Jose International Airport San José Mineta International Airport —officially Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport—is a city-owned public airport in San Jose, California. Located northwest of Downtown San Jose, the airport serves both the city and the Sa ...

Notable people

Charles. Copeland Morse, frequently referred to as the “American Seed King. Th
Morse Mansion
is open for visits by appointment.

Sister cities

, Santa Clara has three

sister cities A sister city or a twin town relationship is International relations, a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. While there ar ...

: *

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

, Portugal *

Izumo, Shimane is a Cities of Japan, city in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 172,841 in 69,435 households and a population density of 280 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Izumo is located in cen ...

, Japan *

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

, Ireland

References

External links

*
Santa Clara Convention and Visitors Bureau website

Silicon Valley Central Chamber of Commerce, formally Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce website
{{authority control 1852 establishments in California Cities in Santa Clara County, California Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area Indian-American culture in California Incorporated cities and towns in California Populated places established in 1777 Spanish mission settlements in North America