Half Moon Bay is a somewhat small coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 11,975 people and three constituent neighborhoods, Half Moon Bay is the 392nd largest community in California.

Half Moon Bay is neither predominently blue-collar or white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Half Moon Bay is a city of sales and office workers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Half Moon Bay who work in management occupations (16.80%), office and administrative support jobs (11.81%), and sales jobs (11.44%).

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

In addition, Half Moon Bay is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates," which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.

The city is also nautical, which means that parts of Half Moon Bay 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.

In Half Moon Bay, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.60 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.

As is often the case in a small city, Half Moon Bay doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Half Moon Bay Information and Demographics

The education level of Half Moon Bay citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (14.96%): 35.54% of adults in Half Moon Bay have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Half Moon Bay in 2000 was $37,963, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $151,852 for a family of four. However, Half Moon Bay contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Half Moon Bay is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Half Moon Bay home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Half Moon Bay is White, followed by African-American. Half Moon Bay also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 24.58% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in Half Moon Bay include Irish, German, Italian, English, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Scottish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Half Moon Bay's cultural character, accounting for 24.13% of the city's population.

The most common language spoken in Half Moon Bay is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Portuguese.