The East Side is made up of numerous neighborhoods grouped into two larger districts: Alum Rock and Evergreen.

East San Jose is bordered by the Diablo Range to the east and south, the Coyote Creek to the west, and Mabury Road to the North.

[1] East San Jose is one of the city's most diverse regions, home to landmarks such as the historic Chicano/Mexican-American neighborhoods of Mayfair and King & Story, as well as the Gurdwara Sahib of San Jose, the largest Sikh temple in the world outside of India.

The Alum Rock neighborhood of Mayfair is famed for its historical association with Californian civil rights activist César Chávez, who lived in the neighborhood in the 1950s and began his career as a grassroots activist at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mayfair.

[5] Evergreen is the site of flight experiments conducted in 1911 by John J. Montgomery, who is best known for his invention of controlled heavier-than-air flying machines.