Silicon Valley

This article is about the high-tech hub of the San Francisco Bay Area. For the geographical valley, see Santa Clara Valley. For other uses, see Silicon Valley (disambiguation).

Silicon Valley
Aerial view of Silicon Valley
Stanford University
Apple Park in Cupertino
Downtown San Jose
Hewlett-Packard's original garage in Palo Alto
The now-demolished "Blue Cube"
Silicon Valley is located in San Francisco Bay Area
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Coordinates: 37°22′39″N 122°04′03″W / 37.37750°N 122.06750°W / 37.37750; -122.06750
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
RegionSan Francisco Bay Area
MegaregionNorthern California
Time zoneUTC−8 (Pacific)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−7 (PDT)

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.[1][2][3] The term "Silicon Valley" refers to the area in which high-tech business has proliferated in Northern California, and it also serves as a general metonym for California's high-tech business sector.

The cities of Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto and Menlo Park are frequently cited as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the 13th-most populous in the United States.[4] Other major Silicon Valley cities include Santa Clara, Redwood City and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (after Zürich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway), according to the Brookings Institution.[5] As of June 2021, it also had the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States.[6]

Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies. Silicon Valley also accounts for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States, which has helped it to become a leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation, although the tech ecosystem has recently become more geographically dispersed.[7][8] It was in Silicon Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other technologies, were developed. As of 2021, the region employed about a half million information technology workers.[9]

As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco and Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" came to have two definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County, and a metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in the entire Bay Area. The term Silicon Valley is often used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similarly named locations, as well as research parks and technology centers with comparable structures all around the world. Many headquarters of tech companies in Silicon Valley have become hotspots for tourism.[10][11][12]

Map of Silicon Valley
  1. ^ Malone, Michael S. (2002). The Valley of Heart's Delight: A Silicon Valley Notebook 1963 - 2001. New York: John S. Wiley & Sons. p. xix. ISBN 9780471201915. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  2. ^ Matthews, Glenna (2003). Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780804741545.
  3. ^ Shueh, Sam (2009). Silicon Valley. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 9780738570938. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  4. ^ "San Jose no longer in Top 10 of most populous U.S. cities". The Mercury News. May 18, 2023. Retrieved May 20, 2023.
  5. ^ Hall, Gina (January 23, 2015). "Silicon Valley Business Journal – San Jose Area has World's Third-Highest GDP Per Capita, Brookings Says". Archived from the original on March 9, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  6. ^ Kolomatsky, Michael (June 17, 2021). "Where Are the Million-Dollar Homes? - A new report reveals which U.S. metropolitan areas have the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  7. ^ Cara Eisenpress (April 28, 2023). "New York is closer than ever to beating the Bay Area on tech". Crain Communications. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  8. ^ Cara Eisenpress (May 22, 2023). "For the first time, Manhattan edges out San Francisco in new early-stage startups". Crain Communications. Retrieved October 14, 2023.
  9. ^ "Silicon Valley Index 2022 report" (PDF). Silicon Valley Index. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 4, 2022. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
  10. ^ Carson, Biz. "16 Silicon Valley landmarks you must visit on your next trip". Business Insider. Archived from the original on July 25, 2019. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
  11. ^ "Tech Headquarters You Can Visit in Silicon Valley". TripSavvy. Archived from the original on July 25, 2019. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
  12. ^ Sheng, Ellen (December 3, 2018). "Why the headquarters of iconic tech companies are now among America's top tourist attractions". CNBC. Archived from the original on July 26, 2019. Retrieved July 26, 2019.