Stanford, California in the context of Stanford University Medical Center

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and then-incumbent United States senator representing California) and his wife, Jane, in memory of their only child, Leland Jr.

The university admitted its first students in 1891, opening as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. It struggled financially after Leland died in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, university provost Frederick Terman inspired an entrepreneurial culture to build a self-sufficient local industry (later Silicon Valley). In 1951, Stanford Research Park was established in Palo Alto as the world's first university research park. By 2021, the university had 2,288 tenure-line faculty, senior fellows, center fellows, and medical faculty on staff.

Hoover Tower is a 285-foot (87 m) structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States. The tower houses the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, an archive collection founded by Herbert Hoover before he became president of the United States. Hoover had amassed a large collection of materials related to early 20th century history; he donated them to Stanford, his alma mater, to found a "library of war, revolution and peace". Hoover Tower also houses the Hoover Institution research center and think tank.

Hoover Tower, inspired by the tower at the New Cathedral of Salamanca, was finished in 1941, the year of Stanford's 50th anniversary. It was designed by architect Arthur Brown Jr.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business school in the United States, admitting only about 6% of applicants.

Stanford GSB offers a general management Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, the MSx Program (MS in Management for mid-career executives), Stanford LEAD Online Business Program and a PhD program, along with joint degrees with other schools at Stanford, including Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Law, and Medicine.

Palo Alto (/ˌpæloʊ ˈæltoʊ/ PAL-oh AL-toh; Spanish for 'tall stick') is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.

The city of Palo Alto was incorporated in 1894 by the American industrialist Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Stanford, when they founded Stanford University in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto later expanded and now borders East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 68,572. Palo Alto has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, and its residents are among the most educated in the country. However, it has a youth suicide rate four times higher than the national average, often attributed to academic pressure.

The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The members are:

• Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States
• Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California, U.S.
• National Humanities Center in Durham County, North Carolina, U.S.
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
• Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala, Sweden
• Berlin Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Germany
• Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem
• Nantes Institute for Advanced Study Foundation in Nantes, France
• Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in Stellenbosch, South Africa

Menlo Park (/ˈmɛnloʊ/ MEN-loh) is a city in San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. Located at the eastern edge of the county, It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; and Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City to the west. It had 33,780 residents at the 2020 United States census. It is home to the corporate headquarters of Meta Platforms, and is where Google, Roblox Corporation, Round Table Pizza, and SRI International were founded. The train station holds the record as the oldest continually operating train station in California. It is one of the most educated cities in California and the United States; nearly 70% of residents over 25 have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.

The Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California, United States. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This medical institution, then called Cooper Medical College, was acquired by Stanford in 1908. In 1959, the medical school moved to the Stanford campus near Palo Alto, California.

The School of Medicine, along with Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, is part of Stanford Medicine.

Stanford Shopping Center is an upscale open air shopping mall located on Route 82 (El Camino Real) at Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. It is on the campus of Stanford University although the university only owns the land and not the actual buildings or stores. Also, unlike the main academic campus, the shopping center and the neighboring Stanford University Medical Center are part of the city of Palo Alto, not the census-designated place (CDP) of Stanford, California. The shopping center buildings are 94.4% owned by Simon Property Group, which manages the property and leases the land from the university.

The outdoor center is 1,347,935 square feet (125,227.3 square meters) and includes four major department stores: Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. Retailers at the shopping center include Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Frette, as well as the first Victoria's Secret retail store.