About San Mateo

San Mateo (/ˌsæn məˈteɪ.oʊ/ san mə-tay-oh; Spanish for "Saint Matthew") is a city in San Mateo County, California in the high-tech enclave of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 97,207 as of the 2010 census, it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south, and Highlands-Baywood Park and Hillsborough to the west. San Mateo was incorporated in 1894.

Originally part of the Rancho de las Pulgas (literally "Ranch of the Fleas") and the Rancho San Mateo, the earliest recorded history is in the archives of Mission Dolores. It indicates in 1789 the Missionaries had named a Native American village along Laurel Creek Los Laureles or the Laurels (Mission Dolores, 1789). An 1835 sketch map of the Rancho refers to the creek as arroyo de los Laureles, but by now most of the Laurels have vanished.

San Mateo has a Mediterranean climate with warm, dry summers and mild, damp winters. The city is shielded from the Pacific Ocean by the Montara Mountain block of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There is a gap in the mountains, west of the College of San Mateo, where State Route 92 meets State Route 35, resulting in gusty afternoon winds and allowing fog to flow toward San Mateo in the late afternoon through early morning in the summer months.

San Mateo is considered to have one of the larger, well developed, more prominent suburban downtowns in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is located roughly between Tilton and 9th streets and Delaware Avenue and El Camino Real The downtown core contains over 800 shops and restaurants, many of them in historic buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A large, modern 12 screen movie theatre complex gives the downtown a major entertainment option. Central Park is considered to be San Mateo's signature park with tennis courts, picnic areas, playground, a baseball field, a recreation center, a miniature train, and a Japanese Tea Garden. Caltrain operates a large train station in downtown. The downtown is also home to many large and small multistory office buildings, apartments, government buildings and Mills Medical Center making the area a busy employment center day and night.