Palo Alto

Palo Alto

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 of Palo Alto was established in 1894 by the American industrialist Leland Stanford when he founded Stanford University in memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto later expanded and now 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 home to the headquarters of multiple tech companies, including HP, Space Systems/Loral, VMware, and PARC. Palo Alto has also served as headquarters or the founding location of several other tech companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, Logitech, Tesla, Intuit, IDEO, Pinterest, and PayPal; Ford Motor Company and Lockheed Martin each additionally maintain major research and technology facilities within Palo Alto.

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