San Diego, CA is the second-most populous city in 📝California and the eighth-largest in the 📝United States, set on San Diego Bay along the Pacific coast directly north of the Mexican border.
The Kumeyaay people lived around the bay long before European contact. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into San Diego Bay in 1542 and claimed it for Spain, and in 1769 Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá alongside a military presidio, the first Spanish mission and the first European settlement in present-day California. The town passed to Mexico after its independence in 1821 and to the United States after the Mexican–American War, incorporating as a city in 1850.
The 2020 census counted 1,386,932 residents in the city and about 3.3 million in San Diego County. Together with Tijuana across the border, the city anchors a binational metropolitan region of nearly five million people, and its San Ysidro port of entry is among the busiest land border crossings in the world. The city sits roughly 120 miles south of 📝Los Angeles, CA.
The military is a cornerstone of the local economy: Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, and the region hosts one of the largest concentrations of military installations in the country. Alongside defense, San Diego supports a major biotechnology and life sciences cluster around Torrey Pines and UC San Diego, and a tourism trade built on its mild Mediterranean climate, its beaches, Balboa Park, and the San Diego Zoo.
In April 2025 I drove down to San Diego to spend time with 📝John Zdanowski and his family, a visit we planned on a call the week before.