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SAN JOSE, CA

San José is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. San Jose is located in Santa Clara Valley, at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region referred as Silicon Valley. Once a small farming city, San Jose became a magnet for suburban newcomers in new housing developments between the 1960s and 1990s, and is now the largest city in Northern California. The official United States Census Bureau population estimate for July 1, 2006 is 929,936. The California Department of Finance estimates, San Jose's population on January 1, 2008 was 989,496.

El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777 as the first town in the Spanish colony of Nueva California, which later became Alta California. The city served as a farming community to support Spanish military installations at San Francisco and Monterey. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose served as its first capital. After more than 150 years as an agricultural center, increased demand for housing from soldiers and other veterans returning from World War II, as well as aggressive expansion during the 1950s and 1960s. Growth in the 1970s attracted more businesses to the city. In the late 1980s, after four decades of heavy development and population growth, San Jose surpassed San Francisco in population to become the third most populous city in California. By the 1990s, San Jose's location within the booming local technology industry earned the city the nickname Capital of Silicon Valley.

Almaden Quicksilver County Park is a 4,147 acres (17 km²) park that includes the grounds of former mercury ("quicksilver") mines adjacent to south San Jose, California, USA. The park's elevation varies greatly: the most used entrances (on the east side of the park) are less than 600 feet (183 m) above sea level, while the highest point in the park is over 1,700 feet (518 m) above sea level.

The Circle of Palms Plaza is located in downtown San Jose, California. It is the location of California Historical Marker 461, the site of California's first state capital from 1849-1851. Today a ring of palm trees encircles a California State Seal at the historical marker, between the Fairmont San Jose Hotel, the Knight-Ridder building (Silicon Valley Financial Center) and the San Jose Museum of Art.

Alum Rock Park, founded in 1872, was the first municipal park in the U.S. state of California. Located in a canyon in the Diablo Range foothills on the east side of San Jose, the 720 acre (2.9 km²) park offers 13 miles (21 km) of trails, varying from fairly level along Penitencia Creek to sharp switchbacks climbing to the ridges to the South Rim Trail and the North Rim Trail. The narrow floor of the canyon includes a visitor center, picnic areas, a playground, and sand volleyball pits.