Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is a commonly used nickname for the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California, USA, originally referring to the concentration of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually becoming a metaphor for the entire concentration of high tech businesses. It encompasses the northern part of Santa Clara Valley and adjacent communities in the southern parts of the San Francisco Peninsula and East Bay. It reaches approximately from Menlo Park (on the Peninsula) and the Fremont/Newark area in the East Bay down through San Jose, centered roughly on Sunnyvale. In north Santa Clara County, an industrial "Big Dipper" can be seen from aerial photographs because the buildings and streets are laid out in a fashion that is easily distinguishable from the residential areas. (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.304051,-121.872734&spn=0.11,0.18&t=k—zoom out for a wider view.)

See also

• List of places with 'Silicon' names

Technology centers within the US

• Research Triangle - North Carolina
• Route 128 - Massachusetts (sometimes known as the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast")
• Silicon Alley - New York City
• Silicon Hills - Texas
• Tech Coast - Southern California
• Eastside - Puget Sound

Technology centers internationally

• Bangalore, India (The Silicon Valley I of India)
• Hyderabad,_India (The Silicon Valley II of India)
• Dresden, Germany (The Silicon Valley of Germany)
• Hsinchu Science Park - Hsinchu, Republic of China (Taiwan)
• M4 corridor - between London and Reading, United Kingdom
• Multimedia Super Corridor - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Silicon Valley North - National Capital Region around Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Sophia Antipolis - between Nice and Cannes, France
• Wireless Valley - Stockholm, Sweden
• Zhong Guan Cun - Beijing, China