Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto ( ; Spanish for 'tall stick') is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States. Part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it is named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The population was 68,572 as of the 2020 United States census.

Palo Alto was incorporated in 1894 by the American industrialist Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford, when they founded Stanford University in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr. The city later expanded and now borders East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. Palo Alto has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, and its residents are among the most educated in the country. However, it has a youth suicide rate four times higher than the national average, often attributed to academic pressure.

As one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto is home to the headquarters of multiple tech companies, including HP, Space Systems/Loral, VMware, and PARC. Palo Alto has also served as headquarters or the founding location of several other tech companies, including Apple, Google, Meta, Logitech, Tesla, Intuit, IDEO, Pinterest, 23andMe, and PayPal. Ford Motor Company and Lockheed Martin each additionally maintain major research and technology facilities within Palo Alto.