San Mateo County, California, USA

San Mateo County lies in California, linking established communities with the surrounding rural and suburban landscape. Redwood City is the county seat in a peninsula county extending from San Francisco Bay across the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Pacific. Local settlement followed the broader regional pattern: Indigenous communities, Spanish and Mexican settlement, railroads and twentieth-century growth all left their mark, followed by expanding road connections. Technology, trade, education, manufacturing, agriculture and tourism shape contemporary life. Visible layers of landscape and history continue to shape the community’s identity.