Santa Barbara is a larger medium-sized coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of California. With a population of 87,533 people and 37 associated neighborhoods, Santa Barbara is the 91st largest community in California.

Santa Barbara home prices are not only among the most expensive in California, but Santa Barbara real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.

Also of interest is that Santa Barbara has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 14.79% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

One thing that you will notice about Santa Barbara is that there is a good-sized population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. Many singles consider Santa Barbara a good place to live without being in a really big city, with opportunities for friendships and fun with others like themselves.

Santa Barbara is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.

Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Santa Barbara spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.18 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Santa Barbara, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Santa Barbara is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 50.63% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.

The per capita income in Santa Barbara in 2022 was $58,989, which is upper middle income relative to California, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $235,956 for a family of four. However, Santa Barbara contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Santa Barbara is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Santa Barbara home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Santa Barbara residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Santa Barbara also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 36.11% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Santa Barbara include German, English, Irish, Italian, and Scottish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Santa Barbara's cultural character, accounting for 21.07% of the city’s population.

The most common language spoken in Santa Barbara is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.