In historical times, California was land of gold and there was influx of immigrants in search of gold. That Gold rush period is over. But now, Silicon Valley in California has emerged as a land of new virtual information currency which is far more valuable than gold.
Silicon Valley has attracted IT professionals from India as a place of innovations, start-ups and birth place of main IT companies ruling the world.
Many maps are available about Silicon valley which give more details like roads, city boundaries and IT company locations. See one sample below. (Ref : http://www.startup-book.com)
It is a dream of every Indian IT graduate to at least visit this place once and get the inspiration for building career. It is observed that there is lot of ignorance about Silicon Valley as its location and expanse.
At lease to me, I was thinking that California means Silicon Valley. As I started reading information about it, I realised that it is a very small part of California state.
Area and population comparison will give more perspective view of Silicon valley as compared to India, USA, California and Maharashtra state.
Comparison of India and America
India –
Land Area – 1,269,000 Square miles Population – 1,311,051,000
Maharashtra State –
Land area – 1, 18,808 square miles Population 112,372,972
USA – United States of America
Land Area -3,531,905 Square miles Population- 318,857,056
Thus it can be seen that USA is about 3 times in size as compared to India but its population is 1/3 times that of India.
California State in USA
Land area – 155,779 Square miles Population – 38,802,500
As compared with Maharashtra state in India, it much smaller in size as well as population.
California, a western U.S. state, stretches from the Mexican border along the Pacific for nearly 900 miles. Its terrain includes cliff-lined beaches, redwood forest, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Central Valley farmland and the Mojave Desert. The city of Los Angeles is the seat of the Hollywood entertainment industry. Hilly San Francisco is known for the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island and cable cars.
There are 9 counties in California.
Alameda County: east bay
Contra Costa County: east bay
Marin County: north bay
Napa County: north bay
San Francisco County
San Mateo County: the peninsula
Silicon Valley –
BIRTHPLACE OF SILICON VALLEY
Stanford alumni David Packard and William Hewlett in their famous Palo Alto garage.
In 1939, with the encouragement of their professor and mentor, Frederick Terman, Stanford alumni David Packard and William Hewlett established a little electronics company in a Palo Alto garage. That garage would later be dubbed “the Birthplace of Silicon Valley.
(Ref. -https://www.stanford.edu/about/history/history_ch3.html)
The San Francisco Bay Area, located in Northern California, consists of nine counties, 101 cities, and comprises 7,000 square miles. All of the region’s nine counties share the San Francisco Bay. With 7.1 million residents, the San Francisco Bay Area is the fifth most populous metropolitan area in the United States.
It is seen that Silicon valley is a very small part of California state and is comparable to one district in Maharashtra. One can travel end to end of Silicon valley in just one hours drive.
Just see the of Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore in comparison to Silicon Valley’s population of 7 million
Population of Pune – 2.8 million, Population of Bangalore – 8.5 million, Population of Mumbai – 12.5 million.
Thus population wise it is equivalent to Bangalore city.
The center point of Silicon Valley is Santa Clara County.
Within Santa Clara County, which has a population of about 1.8 million people, the largest city is San Jose, where just under 1 million people live. San Jose includes many districts, each with their own history, personality, charm, and amenities. Additionally, there are many other cities and one town – Los Gatos – that occupy Santa Clara County.
Other town include Saratoga,Monte Sereno, Campbell, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, Milpitas, plus, in the south county, Morgan Hill, and Gilroy. In addition to these places in Santa Clara County, Silicon Valley edges up into Alameda County (Fremont and Hayward), San Mateo County (notably Menlo Park and Redwood City/Redwood Shores), Santa Cruz County (Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz), and Monterey County (Salinas).