Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Cupertino is situated directly west of San Jose. It is famously known as the home of Apple Inc.’s global headquarters. Cupertino was named after Arroyo San José de Cupertino (now Stevens Creek). The name Cupertino first became widely used when John T. Doyle, a San Francisco lawyer and historian, named his winery on McClellan Road Cupertino. After the turn of the 20th century, Cupertino displaced the former name for the region, which was West Side. Cupertino in the 19th century was a small rural village at the crossroads of Stevens Creek Road and Saratoga-Mountain View Road (also known locally as Highway; later Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, and then renamed to De Anza Boulevard within Cupertino city limits).

Cupertino is made up of numerous subdivisions, with a majority of them developed in the early 1960’s. In a thumbprint of midcentury modern architecture, there’s also a huge area in Cupertino that is home to almost 225 Eichler homes. The newest and most northwestern neighborhood, Oak Valley, borders Rancho San Antonio Park and was developed around the turn of the millennium. The city is served by an interconnected road system. Two freeways, State Route 85 and Interstate 280, intersect in Cupertino, with multi-lane boulevards with landscaped medians and traffic lights at all major intersections. Streets nearly all have sidewalks, the few exceptions are in unincorporated pockets at the city’s edges, which are maintained directly by Santa Clara County. Cupertino is known for its high-achieving primary and secondary school students. It is also home to 112-acre De Anza College, one of the larger community colleges in the Bay Area. Primary (K-8) public schools are organized into the Cupertino Union School District, while the Fremont Union High School District is responsible for high school students. Cupertino is home to De Anza College, one of the two community colleges in the Foothill–De Anza Community College District. The University of San Francisco has satellite campuses in Cupertino.