The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame and is known for its numerous eucalyptus groves, walkable downtown area, and public school system.

[8] Burlingame is situated on land previously owned by San Francisco-based merchant William Davis Merry Howard.

In 1868, Ralston named the land after his friend Anson Burlingame, the United States Ambassador to China.

In 1908, the Burlingame board of trustees passed an ordinance "prohibiting cutting, injuring, or destroying trees".

[11][12] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.1 square miles (16 km2).

[23] In the 1960s, various aerospace and airline support service businesses opened in Burlingame due to its proximity to San Francisco International Airport.

Since 2010, Burlingame's economy has diversified substantially and it has become an attractive location for biotechnology companies given its proximity to South San Francisco.

[28] Additionally, multiple high-technology firms have established offices in Burlingame due to its location between the booming technology centers of Silicon Valley to the south and San Francisco to the north.

Tech companies with Burlingame offices include: Zecco.com, Natsume, Color Genomics, CarWoo, Jobvite, DataStax, Sprint's M2M Collaboration Center, YouWeb, OpenFeint, CrowdStar, BitGravity, Veebeam, TellApart[29] and xAI.

[33] Burlingame school district enrollment has continually been increasing as young families move to the city.

The city recently extensively renovated and modernized the Hoover School, which was built in 1931 and reopened in 2016.

Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the City approved a bond issue to reconstruct the library.

The architecture has won awards and earned a cover story in the 1998 American Libraries journal.

[41] Bay Area Rapid Transit has its southern terminus for the Red and Yellow lines in Millbrae, just north of Burlingame.

In terms of buses, Burlingame is served by SamTrans bus lines 292, 398, 46 and the ECR as well as Commute.org and Caltrain shuttles.