Palo Alto is a larger medium-sized coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 58,783 people and 17 constituent neighborhoods, Palo Alto is the 122nd largest community in California.

Palo Alto is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 95.54% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Palo Alto is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Palo Alto who work in management occupations (19.75%), computer science and math (10.18%), and teaching (9.68%).

And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Palo Alto has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.

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

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

One thing noticeable about Palo Alto, although not a huge city, is that it has a large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. That's because Palo Alto is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Palo Alto a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

In addition to being popular with young singles, Palo Alto is also home to many people who can be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.

The city is also nautical, which means that parts of Palo Alto are somewhat historic and bounded by the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.

Palo Alto Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Palo Alto is a pretty powerful place. 74.38% of the adults in Palo Alto 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 Palo Alto in 2000 was $56,257, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $225,028 for a family of four. However, Palo Alto contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

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

Foreign born people are also an important part of Palo Alto's cultural character, accounting for 26.49% of the city's population.

The languages spoken by people in Palo Alto 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 Palo Alto is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Spanish, French, and Russian.