Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area and the heart of Silicon Valley. Its population was 82,376 at the 2020 census, and it sits between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale along the bay. The city is best known as a technology capital. It is home to Google's headquarters campus, the Googleplex, as well as the NASA Ames Research Center, Intuit, and the Computer History Museum, and the Moffett Federal Airfield lies at its northern edge. This concentration of employers has made Mountain View one of the defining cities of the modern tech economy. That tech identity coexists with a deep local history. The Castro family's rancho once covered much of the area, and Castro Street, the city's downtown spine, is named for them. Mountain View grew around its railroad station in the nineteenth century, and the residential streets flanking Castro still hold Craftsman and Spanish-Revival bungalows from the late 1800s through World War II, giving the downtown a historic character unusual in Silicon Valley. Public education is provided by the Mountain View Whisman School District for preschool through eighth grade and the Mountain View–Los Altos Union High School District for high school. Recreation includes Shoreline Amphitheatre, a 30,000-capacity concert venue near the bay, along with Shoreline-area open space and the bayfront. Caltrain serves the city at its downtown station, VTA light rail connects it to San Jose, and U.S. 101 and State Route 85 provide highway access. The result is a city where a global technology economy and a walkable, historically rooted downtown sit side by side.