Santa Clara Valley

The Santa Clara Valley runs south-southeast from the southern end of San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. The northern, urbanized end of the valley is part of a region locally known as the "South Bay" and also part of the electronics, research, and manufacturing area known as Silicon Valley. Most of the Santa Clara Valley is in Santa Clara County, including its county seat, San Jose. The valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was for a time known as the Valley of Heart's Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s it was the largest fruit production and packing region in the world with 39 canneries.

Once primarily agricultural because of its highly fertile soil, Santa Clara Valley is now largely urbanized, although its far southern reaches south of Gilroy remain agrarian. The most northern urban areas are considered part of Silicon Valley. As Silicon Valley is not an actual valley, parts of the San Francisco Peninsula farther north are included in the Silicon Valley region as well. Locally, the urbanized areas of Santa Clara Valley are also referred to as part of the South Bay.

Few traces of its agricultural past can still be found, but the Santa Clara Valley American Viticultural Area remains a large wine-making region. It was one of the first commercial wine-producing regions in California (and possibly the United States), utilizing high-quality French varietal vines imported from France.

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 Hollister. The valley is bounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains on the southwest, which separate Santa Clara Valley from the Pacific Ocean, and by the Diablo Range on the northeast. The valley is approximately 30 miles (50 km) long by 15 miles (20 km) wide. Its largest city, by an 86.7% margin, is San Jose. The population of the valley is 1.81 million people along with approximately 865,700 wage and salary jobs. Santa Clara Valley has a Mediterranean semi-arid climate.

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