Foster City is a medium-sized coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 28,803 people and eight constituent neighborhoods, Foster City is the 245th largest community in California.

Foster City is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 92.77% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Foster City is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Foster City who work in management occupations (20.86%), sales jobs (13.17%), and computer science and math (12.19%).

Also of interest is that Foster City has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Foster City, while not large, also appears to be attractive to some younger, educated professionals, who help shape the character of the city.

In addition to being popular with young singles, Foster City is also home to many people who can be described as "urban sophisticates." While both of these categories describe educated professionals, urban sophisticates are quite a different demographic. Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness.' But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.

The city is also nautical, which means that parts of Foster City are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities.

Foster City is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Foster City Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Foster City is a pretty powerful place. 59.84% of the adults in Foster City have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 14.96% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Foster City in 2000 was $45,754, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $183,016 for a family of four. However, Foster City contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Foster City is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Foster City home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Foster City is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Foster City include German, Italian, English, Irish, and Russian.

In addition, Foster City has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (35.21%).

The languages spoken by people in Foster City are also diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in Foster City is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Other Asian languages, and Russian.