Palo Alto, California, is among the top cities with a high quality of education. According to our data, this is a good place to live with high ratings in healthcare, environmental quality and economy.
Palo Alto is part of Silicon Valley and the wider San Francisco Bay Area. For more information on scores and rankings, check San Francisco Bay Area's Teleport profile.
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 Movie ticket | $14 |
|---|---|
 Monthly fitness club membership | $100 |
 Monthly public transport | $110 |
 Lunch | $17 |
Software Engineer salaries in Palo Alto are very high. For this job type, Palo Alto ranks 2nd for salaries among 265 cities. Get access to our salary comparison calculator by signing up. Compare salaries city by city with our free salary wizard and convert your own salary to a local salary in Palo Alto.
The overall crime rate puts Palo Alto in position 34 of 266 Teleport Cities in a ranking for the safest cities.
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A video by Syben Carree
Palo Alto is a bustling suburb in Santa Clara County south of the city of San Francisco. It is adjacent to Stanford University and home to hundreds of Silicon Valley technology companies, ranging from VMware and Hewlett-Packard to tiny startups operating in garages.
Palo Alto means tall tree in Spanish, and in this case refers to an aging redwood tree at the north end of the city appropriately named "El Palo Alto". The 1061-year-old Coast Redwood, which stands 110 feet (34 m) high and has a base diameter of 90 inches (229 cm), marks a campsite for the Portola Expedition Party of 1769.
Accessible by train, bus or automobile from nearby San Francisco (about 25 miles/40 km) and San Jose (about 20 miles/32 km) airports. US 101 is the primary highway access, although I-280 also passes through the western edge of Palo Alto. Palo Alto Municipal Airport, which is a few miles from the center of the city, serves private aircraft.
Read moreEvery city comes with a country. How is this one doing in terms of giving back to the global community? Our friends at The Good Country Index measure what each country on earth contributes to the common good of humanity, and what it takes away, relative to its size.
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