Leland Stanford Junior University -- its legal name reminds you why it exists -- was founded by a railroad baron and his wife after the death of their only child. The son, Leland Jr., died of typhoid fever in Florence, Italy, in 1884, at age fifteen. His parents channeled their grief and their fortune into creating a university, opening its doors in 1891 on 8,180 acres of Leland Stanford's Palo Alto horse ranch. As of 2008, 60% of that land remained undeveloped, making Stanford one of the largest university campuses in the world and its most improbable land bank.
Stanford sits on the San Francisco Peninsula in the northwest corner of the Santa Clara Valley -- a location that, in 1891, was agricultural countryside and is now the heart of Silicon Valley. The campus occupies approximately 37 miles southeast of San Francisco and 20 miles northwest of San Jose. The founders' vision was sweeping: Frederick Law Olmsted designed the grounds, and the university's sandstone buildings with red tile roofs, organized around a central quadrangle, created an architectural vocabulary that defines the campus to this day. The university received $4.5 billion in 2006 and spent more than $2.1 billion in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, making it one of the largest economic forces in the region.
No university has been more central to the creation of a technology ecosystem than Stanford. Frederick Terman's decision to lease university land to technology companies created the world's first research park in 1951. Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Stanford alumni, developed their first product -- an audio oscillator -- in a Palo Alto garage that is now a California Historical Landmark called the 'Birthplace of Silicon Valley.' Google's founders met at Stanford. Yahoo was incubated here. The university's refusal to enforce non-compete clauses, its proximity to venture capital on Sand Hill Road, and its culture of encouraging faculty and students to start companies created a feedback loop that has generated more entrepreneurial wealth than any other institution in history.
Stanford's research enterprise spans the full spectrum of human knowledge. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operates a two-mile-long linear accelerator on Stanford land. The medical school, tracing its origins to 1858, combines clinical care with cutting-edge biomedical research. The Graduate School of Business, founded by Herbert Hoover in 1925, is consistently ranked the most selective in the country. The law school has shaped technology policy. The Stegner Fellowship has produced some of America's greatest writers. The Hoover Institution houses one of the world's preeminent archives of modern political history. Annual research expenditures routinely exceed $1 billion.
From the air, Stanford is unmistakable. The red-tiled roofs of the central campus cluster around the Main Quad, with Hoover Tower rising above. Palm Drive extends southeast toward El Camino Real. The Dish -- a 150-foot radio antenna -- sits in the foothills to the west. Stanford Stadium is visible to the east, and the medical center complex occupies the north end. The vast stretches of undeveloped land that surround these structures are as notable as the buildings themselves: a private university sitting on more open space than most national parks, in the middle of the most expensive real estate market in America.
Stanford University campus is centered at approximately 37.43°N, 122.17°W. Key aerial landmarks include Hoover Tower (tallest structure), the oval/Main Quad with red tile roofs, Stanford Stadium, the Dish antenna in the western foothills, and Palm Drive. The campus occupies 8,180 acres. Nearest airports: Palo Alto (KPAO) adjacent northeast, San Jose International (KSJC) 10 nm southeast. SFO Class B airspace overhead.