The area was originally an agricultural community producing prunes, apricots and cherries, with a winery joining the ranks by the 19th century.

By the 1960s, office parks were being built and technology companies were setting up shop in the city, most notably Apple and Hewlett-Packard.

Today, Cupertino remains a cornerstone of Silicon Valley with its residents making a median household income of just under $200,000 a year.

Monta Vista, Cupertino's first housing tract, was developed in the mid-20th century as a result of the electric railway's construction.

In 1954, a rancher, Norman Nathanson, the Cupertino-Monta Vista Improvement Association, and the Fact Finding Committee, began a drive for incorporation.

A major milestone in Cupertino's development was the creation by some of the city's largest landowners of VALLCO Business and Industrial Park in the early 1960s.

A neighborhood outdoor shopping center and, much later, the enclosed Vallco Fashion Park, briefly renamed Cupertino Square, were also developed.

The college, named for Juan Bautista De Anza, occupies a 112-acre (0.45 km2) site that was the location of a winery built at the turn of the 20th century, called Beaulieu by its owners, Charles and Ella Baldwin.

[citation needed] 2010 saw HP consolidate its Bay Area workforce in its hometown of Palo Alto, and the company proceeded to close its campus within Cupertino.

Cupertino borders San Jose and Santa Clara to the east, Saratoga to the south, Sunnyvale and Los Altos to the north, and Loyola to the northwest.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.3 square miles (29 km2),[14] 99.99% of it land and 0.01% of it water.

The area between Stevens Creek Boulevard, Miller Avenue, Bollinger Road, and Lawrence Expressway contains 224 Eichler homes, built during the 1950s.

The newest and most northwestern neighborhood, Oak Valley, borders Rancho San Antonio Park and was developed around the turn of the millennium.

Cupertino is known for its high housing prices as the majority of residential properties are multimillion-dollar homes as of the priciest housing market peak of 2022, with the entry-point into a single-family home at around 2 million dollars in the Cupertino HS area, and the entry point at around 2.6 million dollars in the Monta Vista HS area.

However, townhouses and condos with similar square footage are relatively less expensive, owing mainly to negligible lot sizes and the many common walls and areas.

Cupertino is one of many cities that claim to be the "heart" of Silicon Valley, as many semiconductor and computer companies were founded there and in the surrounding areas.

On June 7, 2011, Steve Jobs gave a presentation to Cupertino City Council, detailing the architectural design of the new building and its environs.

[26][failed verification][citation needed] The cement plant is the sole reason for the railroad line that runs through the city.

In addition, Homestead High School is located in the northwestern portion of Cupertino, along the city border with neighboring Sunnyvale.

Almost all streets have sidewalks; the few exceptions are in unincorporated pockets at the city's edges, which are maintained directly by Santa Clara County.

Cupertino has bike lanes on many of its boulevards, and has an extension of the Stevens Creek Trail through McClellan Ranch Park and Blackberry Farm.

Cupertino's main streets are well lit, while a few older roads towards the Monta Vista High School area are a little dim.

Dedicated on April 30, 2009, Cupertino opened the Mary Avenue Bicycle Footbridge, the first cable-stayed bicycle-pedestrian bridge over a California freeway.

[36] The Union Pacific Railroad operates a branch line track up to the Lehigh Permanente Cement Plant from the mainline at San Jose Diridon Station.

Cupertino is also served by VTA's 523 Rapid bus, which runs from northern Sunnyvale and the Caltrain station to Downtown San Jose with limited stops and signal priority.

[37][38] Unlike traditional bus networks that rely on routes and schedules, the new microtransit service called Via allows riders to hail a shared ride on demand through a smartphone app.

[39][40] The transit network serves the entire City of Cupertino with a satellite zone surrounding the Sunnyvale Caltrain station for commuters.