Elk Grove is a growing family-oriented suburban community with an entrepreneurial spirit located 20 minutes south of Downtown Sacramento. As of 2018, Elk Grove’s population was 173,702, making it the second-largest city in Sacramento County. The city’s location provides easy access to two major north-south freeways (Interstate 5 and Highway 99) for the 52,000 households calling Elk Grove home. In 1850, Elk Grove was founded as a stagecoach stop for travelers coming from Sacramento and the Bay Area. Throughout much of the 20th century, Elk Grove was a small farming community with little development. In the late 1980s however, residential development started to spike and master planned communities continue to be built to this day with a wide variety of homes available, from starter homes to ranch estates. Elk Grove incorporated as a city in 2000. From 2003 to 2018, Elk Grove’s population doubled. The Elk Grove Unified School District is the city’s largest employer with almost 6,000 employees. The school district is regarded as one of the top performing school districts in California. Apple is the second-largest employer in Elk Grove, growing its presence from 1,200 employees in 2011 to more than 5,000 today at its four-building, 773,000 square foot campus. Most employees work in AppleCare manufacturing positions but the iPhone maker plans to expand its Elk Grove presence after it acquired a 24,000 square foot office building in 2018.
