Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto population, 2020 to 2024

Palo Alto lost 698 residents from July 2020 to July 2024, a change of -1.0%. In the latest year it moved by +864. Among 429 California places of 5,000 or more, that growth ranks 212th; the median place changed by -1.1%. The median place of 5,000+ in California has 37,056 people, so Palo Alto is 1.8 times that size.

Palo Alto covers 24.05 square miles of land and 1.91 of water, for 2,813 people per square mile of land. The median California place of 5,000+ has 3,725, so Palo Alto is less dense than the typical town.

What county Palo Alto is in

All of Palo Alto's residents live in Santa Clara County, which had 1,926,325 residents in 2024. Palo Alto holds 3.5% of the county's population. The shaded shape is on the map above; dots mark the eight nearest places.

ZIP codes in Palo Alto

6 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) overlap Palo Alto by at least 10% of the ZCTA's or the city's land: 94022, 94028, 94301, 94303, 94304, 94306. ZCTAs are Census approximations of USPS ZIP code delivery areas. The list comes from the 2020 ZCTA to place relationship file, so a city that annexed land after 2020 may reach into ZIP codes not listed here.

Where Palo Alto is

The Census internal point of Palo Alto is at 37.396500, -122.143100. Sacramento, the capital, is 88.9 miles NNE in a straight line. The nearest larger place is Mountain View, CA (87,316 people), 3.5 miles away. The nearest city of 100,000 or more is Sunnyvale, CA, 6.5 miles away.

Daylight in Palo Alto

At 37.40° N, Palo Alto gets about 14 h 45 min of daylight around the June solstice and 9 h 35 min around the December solstice, a swing of 5 h 10 min. Figures are sunrise to sunset from the SunCalc model for June 21 and December 21, 2026.

Places near Palo Alto

The eight nearest incorporated places of 1,000+ in California, measured between internal points. The closest is Los Altos Hills, 2.1 miles away, with 8,435 people.