About Palo Alto, CA

Palo Alto (; Spanish for “tall stick”) is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was established by Leland Stanford when he founded Stanford University, following the death of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto includes portions of Stanford University and borders East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. At the 2020 census, the population was 68,572. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States in which to live, and its residents are among the most educated in the country. However, it also 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 headquarters to a number of high-tech companies, including HP, Space Systems/Loral, VMware, Ford Research and Innovation Center, PARC, IDEO, Skype, Houzz, SAP Labs, and Lockheed Martin. Palo Alto has also served as headquarters to several other high-tech companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Logitech, Tesla, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal. == History == Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Ohlone lived on the San Francisco peninsula; in particular, the Puichon Ohlone lived in the Palo Alto area. The area of modern Palo Alto was first recorded by the 1769 party of Gaspar de Portolá, a 64-man, 200-horse expedition setting out from San Diego to find Monterey Bay. The group trekked past the bay without recognizing it and continued north.