San Jose, California — Travel Guide & Things to Do

San Jose, officially the City of San José , is the largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 population of 1,013,240, it is the most populous city in both the Bay Area and the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which has a 2015 population of 7.7 million and 9.7 million people respectively, the third-most populous city in California after Los Angeles and San Diego, and the 12th-most populous in the United States. 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 km2). 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.