Stanford is a census-designated place (CDP) in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States.

[3] Stanford is adjacent to the city of Palo Alto, which borders it to the east, but the CDP itself remains unincorporated.

Its resident population consists of the inhabitants of on-campus housing, including graduate student residences and single-family homes and condominiums owned by their faculty inhabitants but located on leased Stanford land.

The adjacent neighborhood of College Terrace, a residential neighborhood with streets named after universities and colleges, is neither part of the Stanford CDP nor owned by the university (except for a few individual houses[4]).

This region experiences warm, dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 77.6 °F (25.3 °C), and cool, wet winters, with no average monthly temperatures below 37.7 °F (3.2 °C).

At the 2000 census there were 13,314 people, 3,207 households, and 1,330 families living in the CDP.

The racial makeup of the CDP was 60.40% White, 4.90% Black or African American, 0.72% Native American, 25.57% Asian, 0.16% Pacific Islander, 3.65% from other races, and 4.60% from two or more races.

[9] In the California State Legislature, Stanford is in the 13th Senate District, represented by Democrat Josh Becker, and in the 24th Assembly District, represented by Democrat Alex Lee.

[13] Preschools in the CDP include the Bing Nursery School, run by the university's School of Humanities and Sciences,[14] and the Children's Center of the Stanford Community, a parent-teacher cooperative.

[15] The following are people who were either born or spent a significant part of their childhood living in Stanford, California.