San Rafael 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 56,132 people and 11 constituent neighborhoods, San Rafael is the 135th largest community in California.

San Rafael is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 86.89% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, San Rafael is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in San Rafael who work in sales jobs (13.37%), management occupations (12.39%), and office and administrative support jobs (11.80%).

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

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

One thing noticeable about San Rafael, 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 San Rafael 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 San Rafael 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, San Rafael is also home to many people who can 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 San Rafael 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.

One downside of living in San Rafael is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In San Rafael, the average commute to work is 30.71 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

San Rafael Information and Demographics

The education level of San Rafael citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (14.96%): 43.60% of adults in San Rafael have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in San Rafael in 2000 was $35,762, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $143,048 for a family of four.

San Rafael is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call San Rafael home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in San Rafael is White, followed by Asian. San Rafael also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 23.36% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in San Rafael include Irish, German, English, Italian, French, and Russian.

In addition, San Rafael has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (28.05%).

The most common language spoken in San Rafael is English. Some people also speak Spanish.