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Milpitas (inhabitants are called 'Milpitians') is a city in Santa Clara County, California. It is located with San Jose to its south and Fremont to its north, at the eastern end of Highway 237 and generally between Interstate freeways 680 and 880 which run roughly north/south through the city. With Alameda County bordering directly on the north, Milpitas sits in the extreme northeast section of the South Bay, bordering the East Bay and Fremont. Milpitas is also located within the Silicon Valley. The corporate headquarters of Maxtor, LSI Logic, Solectron and Adaptec sit within the industrial zones of Milpitas.
The name Milpitas is a variation of the plural diminutive of milpa, a Mexican Spanish word for "garden where maize is grown." The proper diminutive form of milpa, though, is actually milpilla, not milpita. Thus, in Mexico, several towns and villages have the name Milpillas, but there is no Milpitas in Mexico. The word milpa is a word derived from Nahuatl milli, meaning "agricultural field" and pan. meaning "on."
The following is taken from Charles G. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2005. pp. 197-199.
"Indian Farmers grow maize in what is called a milpa. The term means 'maize field' but refers to something considerably more complex. A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once, including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jicama, amaranth (a grain-like plant), and mucuna (a legume). In nature, wild beans and squash often grow in the same field as teosinte (an ancestor of corn), and beans using the tall teosinte as a ladder to climb toward the sun; below ground, the beans nitrogen-fixing roots provide nutrients needed by teosinte. The milpa is an elaboration of this natural situation, unlike ordinary farms, which involve single-crop expanses of a sort rarely observed in unplowed landscapes. (...) more....
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