Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 census.
Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the location of many high technology companies. In 1956, William Shockley established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices in Silicon Valley. Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world's largest technology companies, including Google and Alphabet Inc., Intuit, NASA Ames Research Center, and former or existing headquarters for Symantec, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Samsung, Quora and Synopsys.
History
The fertile land between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the shores of the southern San Francisco Bay once supported multiple villages of the indigenous Ohlone people. Spanish missionaries utilized the land for sheep pastures.
The Mexican land grant of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was given in 1842 by Alta California governor Juan Alvarado to Francisco Estrada. This grant was later passed on to Mariano Castro, who sold half of the land to Martin Murphy Jr. Eventually, the former land grant was developed as the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale.
The southwest shore of San Francisco Bay was settled by European-Americans in 1852 as a stagecoach station. This was after the United States acquired California. By the early 1900s, it was a shipping point for fruit and grain, as well as a center of religious book publishing.
The early pioneers were commonly buried at the old cemetery between Mercy & Church, off Castro Street. This is now the site of the present city library and park, known as Pioneer Park.
Residents In 1852, Seligman Weilheimer and his brother Samuel immigrated from Dossenheim, Baden, Germany. They built the first big general merchandise store in the settlement in 1856.
Advent of local aerospace and electronics industries The U.S. Navy's adjacent Moffett Field Complex was constructed beginning after 1931; its development attracted many workers and it brought many economic opportunities. After World War II, the population grew significantly with the development of regional aerospace and electronics industries. Between 1950 and 1960, the population grew from 6,563 to 30,889, an increase of 370.7%.
Between 1929 and 1994, Moffett Field Naval Air Station operated in Mountain View. In 1940, the city was the base of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now the NASA Ames Research Center), which had a strong influence on the development of aerospace and electronics industries.
Economic climate Technology is the foundation of the local economy. Few remnants are visible of the city's agricultural past.
In 1990, Kevin Duggan began his position as city manager. He built a relationship with Google, Inc., and issued a long-term lease to it and other technology companies. As of 2014, those leases generate over $5 million per year in city revenue. The Castro Street downtown area also benefited from a special tax district.
In 2016, the city's voters approved a rent control ordinance.
Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (2.26%) is water.
Neighborhoods The Blossom Valley neighborhood comprises five smaller neighborhoods: Springer Meadows, Varsity Park, Blossom Valley Estates, Springer Trees, and Gest Ranch subdivision known as Miramonte Oaks which borders Los Altos. This would be one of the more exclusive areas, this development was built in 1963 to about 1965. The other neighborhood's ranch-style housing were built in the 1950s and 1960s on orchard land.
The Cuernavaca neighborhood is located off Crestview Drive near the Sunnyvale border. This neighborhood used to be the location of a cherry orchard, and later a nine-hole golf course and swim club before it was turned into housing, which was completed in 1989. Most of the housing in Cuernavaca is Spanish-style, with red tiled roofs.
The Monta Loma neighborhood is located between the bounds of San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway. Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style mid-century modern houses by Joseph Eichler, John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.
Hazardous waste Due to its history as a center for semiconductor manufacturing, Mountain View has seven sites on the Environmental Protection Agency's Final National Priorities List (NPL), a list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial action financed under the federal Superfund program. The sites were formerly used by companies including Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, Raytheon, CTS Printex Inc., Spectra-Physics, Jasco Chemical, GTE and Teledyne. These seven sites make up a portion of the 22 NPL sites in Santa Clara County, which are included in the total of 94 sites in California.
Climate Mountain View has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb: dry-summer subtropical). Summers are warm and dry, while winters are cool and wet. However, both summers and winters are somewhat moderated due to the city's relative proximity to the Pacific, although it has a lesser maritime influence than San Francisco further north on the peninsula.
Economy
Mountain View is one of the major cities that make up Silicon Valley, and has many notable Silicon Valley companies either headquartered there or with a large presence. As of 2026, major tech companies such as Google and Intuit were headquartered in Mountain View.
After voting to increase the minimum wage incrementally in 2015, in December 2017, the Mountain View City Council implemented a mandatory $15 minimum wage, to apply to employees who work two or more hours a week. At the start of 2018, Mountain View raised its minimum wage to $15. Starting on January 1, 2019, the minimum wage was to be "adjusted annually based on the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose regional Consumer Price Index". A proposal to slow down the rate of the wage increases by a year was defeated in a City Council meeting on December 4, 2018. Subsequently, on December 30, 2018, it was announced that Mountain View's minimum wage would rise to $15.65 on January 1, 2019, with the increase delayed by one year for companies with 25 or fewer employees. As of January 2026, the minimum wage in Mountain View is $19.70 per hour.
Top employers According to the city's 2025 annual comprehensive financial report, the largest employers in the city are:
# Employer # of Employees Percentage 1 Google LLC 23,100 19.1% 2 El Camino Hospital 3,400 2.8% 3 Intuit 3,400 2.8% 4 Microsoft 3,000 2.5% 5 LinkedIn 2,500 2.1% 6 Waymo 1,700 1.4% 7 Palo Alto/Sutter Health 1,000 0.8% 8 Mountain View Whisman School District 600 0.5% 9 Bytedance 560 0.5% 10 Nuro 500 0.4%—Total employers39,76032.9%
Demographics
Racial and ethnic composition +Mountain View, California – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010% 2000% 2010White alone (NH)39,02934,05233,00855.20%45.98%40.07%Black or African American alone (NH)1,6741,4681,1552.37%1.98%1.40%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)1641161010.23%0.16%0.12%Asian alone (NH)14,51319,06428,76020.53%25.74%34.91%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)1603722150.23%0.50%0.26%Other race alone (NH)2212415570.31%0.33%0.68%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)2,0362,6824,3742.88%3.62%5.31%Hispanic or Latino (any race)12,91116,07114,20618.26%21.70%17.25%Total70,70874,06682,376100.00%100.00%100.00%
2020 census As of the 2020 census, there were 82,376 people, 34,423 households, and 19,585 families residing in the city. The median age was 35.3 years. 19.3% of residents were under the age of 18 and 11.8% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females, there were 107.7 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 108.5 males age 18 and over. The population density was .
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
Of all households, 28.2% had children under the age of 18 living in them. 45.7% were married-couple households, 24.7% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 22.6% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. There were 37,295 housing units, of which 7.7% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%, and the rental vacancy rate was 6.4%.
Labor force and poverty According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mountain View had an unemployment rate of 5.0% in August 2013. In 2022, 5.4 percent of people in Mountain View were living below the poverty line. Of residents age 16 and older, 72.9 percent were in the civilian labor force and 27.1 percent were not.
2010 census As of the 2010 census, there were 74,066 people, households, and families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 31,957 housing units.
145 (0.2%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 120 (0.2%) were institutionalized. There were 31,957 households, out of which 8,731 (27.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,806 (43.2%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 2,456 (7.7%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,253 (3.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,928 (6.0%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 280 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 10,961 households (34.3%) were made up of individuals, and 2,471 (7.7%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31. There were 17,515 families (54.8% of all households); the average family size was 3.01. The population was spread out, with 14,594 people (19.7%) under the age of 18, 5,401 people (7.3%) aged 18 to 24, 28,577 people (38.6%) aged 25 to 44, 17,647 people (23.8%) aged 45 to 64, and 7,846 people (10.6%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 103.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 103.5 males. There were 33,881 housing units at an average density of , of which 13,332 (41.7%) were owner-occupied, and 18,625 (58.3%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 4.4%. 32,002 people (43.2% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units, and 41,799 people (56.4%) lived in rental housing units.
According to the Santa Clara County Homeless Census and Survey, the number of homeless individuals in Mountain View increased 51% from 2015 to 2017, with 276 homeless individuals in 2015, and 416 in 2017. In August 2017, the Mercury News reported that Mountain View had seen RVs and recreational vehicles become the choice of residence for many working poor in the city. The city's communications coordinator called it a "new" situation, noting that many of the residents living in RVs were working up to three jobs, and that affordable housing was hard to come by in the city. In December 2017, Google received approval to build nearly 10,000 new units of housing near its future campus in the city.
2000 census As of the 2000 census, there were 70,708 people, 31,242 households, and 15,902 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 32,432 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 63.77% White, 20.67% Asian, 18.26% Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 2.53% African American, 0.39% Native American, 0.26% Pacific Islander, 8.32% from other races, and 4.07% from two or more races.