San Jose has evolved from an agricultural community to a major metropolitan center with numerous types of businesses. Many of the largest corporations on the earth are major private sector employers in this city. A few examples are Cisco Systems, IBM, Ebay, Hitachi, Xilinx, Adobe, KLA-Tencor, Cadence Design Systems, Sanmina-SCI, Altera, Novellus Systems, Flextronics International, and Seagate Technologies.

San Jose is actually Spanish for Saint Joseph. There are heaps of cities in many countries named San Jose. Of these, the two largest cities include the capital of Costa Rica together with San Jose of California. Inside the US, San Jose is also the name of a community inside Graham County, Arizona, a satellite town and part of the city of Bisbee, Arizona, and a city in Illinois. San Jose of California is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U. S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County. It is at at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. The San Jose/Silicon Valley area is a major portion of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7. 5 million people and the sixth greatest metropolitan area in the US.

The San Jose, California area was historically inhabited by several groups of Ohlone Indians. Father Junípero Serra commenced establishing several Franciscan missions in 1769. On November 29, 1777, Lieutenant José Joaquín Moraga established San Jose as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe to establish a farming community. It was the first town in the Spanish colony of Nueva California, which later became Alta California. In 1821, San Jose belonged to Mexico after she became independent of Spain. In 1846, San Jose became part of the United States along with the annexation of California. On March 27, 1850, San Jose became the second incorporated city in California(after Sacramento) and quickly became the initial capital of California. In 1850 and 1851, San Jose hosted the first and second sessions of the California Legislature.

According to the 2010 Census, there are roughly 945,000 people living in San Jose. There exists tremendous ethnic and cultural diversity. In 2002, the San Jose Unified School District stated that the residents spoke more than 52 different languages.

There are lots of landmarks along with attractions around San Jose. Some examples are the Tech Museum of Innovation, the Children's Discovery Museum, the Winchester Mystery House (a 160-room Victorian mansion), Japantown (one of only three remaining Japantowns in America), and Biblioteca-Latino Americana (one of the largest collections of Spanish language materials in Northern California) San Jose sponsors many cultural festivals. There are actually numerous working ethnic chambers of commerce.