King City is a member of the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments.

The first European land exploration of Alta California, Don Gaspar de Portolá's Spanish expedition, camped on the Salinas River just south of today's King City on September 26, 1769, having followed the route of today's Jolon Road from the south.

The Dutton Hotel, Stagecoach Station, was located on Jolon Road in King City.

The Dutton Hotel was a major stagecoach stop on El Camino Real in the late 1880s.

[citation needed] In 1886, the Southern Pacific Railroad completed service to King City station[citation needed] to serve the farms and ranches in the south Salinas Valley and to transport the goods to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The mill was built by R. M. Shackelford, an early California settler and businessman who owned sheep pasturage next to that of Charles King.

King City Pinks were sold around the country, helped along by additional demand during World War I.

[citation needed] The Robert Stanton Auditorium, built in 1939 as a WPA Depression project, is an example of Art Moderne style, with elliptical rounded corners, Doric-style columns, an expansive curved stairway leading to recessed oak and glass double doors, and a bas-relief triptych by artist Jo Mora, above doors that depict notable multi-cultural scenes of historic importance.

King City is in southeastern Monterey County in the Salinas Valley at an elevation of 330 feet (100 m) above sea level.

Although snow often falls in the winter in the Santa Lucia mountains west of the city, it is quite rare in the Salinas Valley; however, 5.3 inches (130 mm) fell in January 1957 and 3.0 inches (76 mm) fell in December 1954.

Line 23 provides service to the Salinas Valley communities with connections to other areas of Monterey County.

King City is served by Amtrak Thruway, as the passenger train that passes through the community does not stop.

[17] In 2018, King City was denied a $21 million TIRCP grant to build a multimodal transportation center which would provide connections to Amtrak between Paso Robles and Salinas.

[18] A small $1.5 million grant was approved by the state government the following year, providing funds to design the Amtrak platform.

Local radio stations include KEXA-FM – 93.9, KRKC-AM – 1490, 102 KRKC-FM, and KDON-FM 102.5.

The Rustler was founded in 1901 by Fred Vivian, who reportedly went into a local barber shop, sold subscriptions to all the customers and then passed around a hat for them to suggest names for the newspaper.

Vivian was later succeeded as publisher by his grandson Harry Casey, who was called home to King City in 1952 to take over management of the newspaper by his aunt Ruth Steglich after the death of her husband, then-publisher Bill Steglich.

He served as co-publisher until Ruth Steglich's death and publisher until declining health forced him to sell The Rustler and three other regional weeklies to News Media, Inc. in 1995.

Their sons Rich and Bill operated Casey Printing in King City until 2023.

[25] The town features prominently in the song "Queen of King City", on the Red Meat album We Never Close.

King City is mentioned repeatedly in John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden.