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 that you will notice about Palo Alto is that there is a good-sized population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. Many singles consider Palo Alto a good place to live without being in a really big city, with opportunities for friendships and fun with others like themselves.

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 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.

Palo Alto Information and Demographics

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Palo Alto, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Palo Alto is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 74.38% 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 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.