Los Altos is a medium-sized city located in the state of California. With a population of 27,585 people and ten constituent neighborhoods, Los Altos is the 253rd largest community in California.

Los Altos is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 94.72% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Los Altos is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Los Altos who work in management occupations (25.81%), sales jobs (9.90%), and computer science and math (8.75%).

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

Of important note, Los Altos is also a city of artists. Los Altos has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Los Altos's character.

Los Altos, 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, Los Altos 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.

Because of many things, Los Altos is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Los Altos really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Los Altos perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

Los Altos 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.

Los Altos Information and Demographics

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Los Altos, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Los Altos is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 71.30% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 14.96%.

The per capita income in Los Altos in 2000 was $66,776, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $267,104 for a family of four. However, Los Altos contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

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

Los Altos also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 17.61%.

The most common language spoken in Los Altos is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.