Santa Clara Valley

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See Silicon Valley for a discussion of the technological aspects of the Santa Clara Valley.

The Santa Clara Valley is a valley just south of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. Much of Santa Clara County, California and its county seat San Jose, are in the Santa Clara Valley. The valley was originally known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for the miles and miles of orchards. Once primarily agricultural because of its highly fertile soil, it is now largely urbanized, although its far southern reaches south of Gilroy remain rural. Silicon Valley is roughly synonymous with the Santa Clara Valley, although since the former is as much a state of mind as an actual location, people often refer to parts of the San Francisco Peninsula as being part of Silicon Valley as well. Locally, the Santa Clara Valley is also referred to as the "South Bay." However, the Santa Clara Valley American Viticultural Area remains important.

The northern end of the Santa Clara Valley is at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay, and the southern end is in the vicinity of Gilroy. The valley is bounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains on the southwest and by the Diablo Range on the northeast. It is about 30 miles long and about 15 miles wide. The valley's largest city, by far, is San Jose.

Looking west from Alum Rock Park over northern San Jose (downtown is at far left) and other parts of the valley.

[edit] Cities and towns

Cities and towns in the Santa Clara Valley include (in alphabetical order):

Because so much high-tech industry has spread out from the Silicon Valley, Fremont and Newark, even though they are not in the Santa Clara Valley, are often included in discussions about the Silicon Valley or, in the case of Fremont, is referred to as the Gateway to the Silicon Valley (a title also claimed occasionally by San Jose). Similarly, Palo Alto, while in Santa Clara County and considered part of Silicon Valley, is on the San Francisco Peninsula.

[edit] Geology

Santa Clara Valley was created by the sudden growth of the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range, during the later Cenozoic era. This was a period of intense mountain building in California when the folding and thrusting of the earth's crust, combined with active volcanism, gave shape to the present state of California. Hence, Santa Clara Valley is a structural valley, created by mountain building, as opposed to an erosional valley, or one which has undergone the wearing away of the earth's surface by natural agents. The underlying geology of the Santa Cruz Mountains was also formed by the sediment of the ancient seas, where marine shale points to Miocene origin. Today one can still find evidence of this in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where shark's teeth and the remains of maritime life are still found as high as Scotts Valley, a city nestled in the mountains.^[1]