Come on Stu: Stop trying to cut hairs. The two major cities/cultural/historical centers in California are San Francisco and Los Angeles, with San Diego and San Jose being much less historically significant.

BTW - it's called the San Francisco Bay Area for a reason (not the San Jose Bay Area) - with a population of close to 7 million. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm

We have about 3 million in the county of San Diego, and in and around the greater Los Angeles area - somewhere in the 18 million range.

Oh jeeze - Here we go again(!)

gagc99 is a first time visitor to California so let's try to help, and not play ¿Quienes más macho?

LOL so it's 2 largest cities until you are called on your mistake then you switch to 2 major cities. So if YOU said what you meant the first time there would be no "hair splitting" i.e. being correct. People are just trying to keep it real.

Mistake? For those a bit slow on the uptake - there are two truly significant cities in California - and they are the two that the poster first noted - LA and San Francisco. Period.

>>Mistake? For those a bit slow on the uptake

Stu - you bring up a total red herring - and now step in it deeper

Q pleez: How many people come from all over the world to visit San Jose? Really.

IMO - most people think of San Francisco as also including the Bay Area - including the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge and areas on the other side of those bridges (such as Sausalito or Berkeley) - not just the city boundaries of SF.

BTW - what Gertrude Stein said about Oakland applies equally to San Jose: There is No There There.

You said largest. If we take you at your word then SF is not one of the largest either in geography or population. Just saying...

as someone mentioned ealier 1 week not enough time for 3 major CA. cities. (1 week only good for only 2 cities (LA and SD) includes travel time or 1 week per city (so much to do, so Little time) Spent 10 days at SF, alone, with day trips to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park. To San Jose - Winchester mansion and Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.
To Monterey Bay Aquarium. To Napa Valley - Wineries. To Six Flags- Discovery Kingdom - Vallejo, California. To California's Great America - Santa Clara.
(LA and SD 2 hours apart whereas SF is like 9 hours away non-stop driving)