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
thumb|upright|Map of Mountain View surrounds, 1890. Note [[Rancho Posolmi (here called Ynigo Rancho) and Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas. Mountain View Whisman School District is named for Whisman.]]
thumb|[[Mountain View Adobe was constructed as a Works Progress Administration project in 1934.]]
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.
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.
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. Monta Loma houses a collection of California-style mid-century modern houses by Joseph Eichler, John Calder Mackay, and Mardell Building Company.
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 its relative proximity to the Pacific, although it has a lesser maritime influence than San Francisco further north on the peninsula.
Economy
thumb|[[Google headquarters, Googleplex, is Mountain View's largest employer]]
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 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. 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:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! #
! 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
| 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 employers
|39,760
|32.9%
|}