Santa Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2000 it had a population of 1,682,585. The U.S. Census estimate for 2008 was 1,764,499. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley. Santa Clara is the most populous county in the Bay Area region.
Santa Clara County was one of the original counties of California, formed in 1850 at the time of statehood. The original inhabitants included the Ohlone, residing on Coyote Creek and Calaveras Creek. |