San Luis Obispo is a city in California named after St. Louis, the Bishop of Toulouse. It may also refer to:
San Luis Obispo (/sæn ˌluːəs əˈbɪspoʊ/, /sɑːn luːˌiːs əˈbɪspoʊ/; Spanish for St. Louis, the Bishop [of Toulouse]) is a city in the U.S. state of California, located roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the Central Coast.
The population was 45,119 at the 2010 census. The population of San Luis Obispo County was 269,637 in 2010.
Founded in 1772 by Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra, San Luis Obispo is one of California's oldest communities. Serra's original mission was named for the 13th Century saint and bishop Louis of Toulouse.
The city, locally referred to as San Luis, SLO, or SLO Town (as its county is also referred to as SLO) is the county seat of San Luis Obispo County and is adjacent to California Polytechnic State University.
The earliest human inhabitants of the local area were the Chumash people. One of the earliest villages lies south of San Luis Obispo and reflects the landscape of the early Holocene when estuaries came farther inland. The Chumash people used marine resources of the inlets and bays along the Central Coast and inhabited a network of villages, including sites at Los Osos and Morro Creek.
San Luis Obispo is a passenger rail station in the city of San Luis Obispo, California. The station is fully staffed with ticketing and checked baggage services. The present Spanish Colonial Revival architecture style depot was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad and completed in 1942. It replaced the original SP depot, located just south of the current one, that had opened in 1895. When the present depot was opened, the former depot was utilized as a freight depot until 1968, when it was shuttered. It was demolished to make room for a parking lot in 1971.
The station is the northern terminus of Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner from San Luis Obispo to San Diego and it also serves the Coast Starlight from Seattle, Washington to Los Angeles, California. Four Pacific Surfliner trains and two Coast Starlight trains (one in each direction) serve the station daily.
Of the 74 California stations served by Amtrak, San Luis Obispo was the 27th-busiest in FY2012, boarding or detraining an average of approximately 297 passengers daily.