THE SAN JOSE LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Bay Terraces/Lower Santa Clara Valley setting.
San Jose city has 177.9 square miles of land in Santa Clara County. Its Census reference point is in Bay Terraces/Lower Santa Clara Valley, within Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains.
Oak woodland, chaparral and grassland occupy foothills and low coastal mountains around the Central Valley. Narrow agricultural valleys interrupt this landscape of dry summers and wetter winters.
Regional context: Central California Foothills and Coastal Mountains ↗ · Classification at the Census reference point
San Jose and Santa Clara County
San Jose is associated with Santa Clara County in the Census boundary data. Start with the parcel’s tax bill to match the property to that jurisdiction, then confirm which government handles its land use.
San Jose by land and water
The Census records 3.12 square miles of water within San Jose, or 1.7% of its total area. It is 0.7 percentage points higher than the 1% recorded for Santa Clara County. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, San Jose city has 205.5 times the land area of nearby Alum Rock CDP (0.87 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.

