San Diego is a coastal Southern California city located in the southwestern corner of the continental United States. As of 2005, the city has a population of 1,255,240 people. It is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest in the United States [1]. The larger metropolitan area is the seventeenth-largest in the United States, with a population over 2.9 million. It lies just north of the Mexican border (shares border with Tijuana, Mexico), and is a home for United States Navy and Marine Corps bases, many miles of beaches, and a mild marine climate. The annual mean temperature is 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (18°C). San Diego's economy centers on tourism, trade, agriculture, ship-building, the military, biotechnology, computer science and electronics.

The University of California, San Diego and nearby research institutes on Torrey Mesa provide a base for technological innovation and there are numerous high-tech and biotech companies in the area, such as Qualcomm, Neurocrine, Illumina, and Genentech of Oceanside. Major tourists attractions include the city's beaches and bays, Balboa Park with its many museums, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, San Diego Wild Animal Park (in Escondido, north of the city) and Old Town, the site of the original Spanish settlement.