Which Silicon Valley city is the county seat of Santa Clara County? San Jose is the county seat.
San Jose sits in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. It is both the county’s seat of government and its largest city, making it a central civic and economic anchor of Silicon Valley.
Santa Clara County was one of California’s original counties, established in 1850. Although the county also includes well-known technology centers such as Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, none of those cities serves as the county seat. County administrative functions are centered in San Jose.
San Jose is sometimes overlooked because Silicon Valley’s global image is strongly associated with companies headquartered elsewhere. The city itself, however, is the region’s largest municipality and gives its name to the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara metropolitan area.