Upland is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States on the affix with adjacent to Los Angeles County. The municipality is located at an elevation of 1,242 feet (379 m). As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 79,040, up from 73,732 at the 2010 census and 68,393 at the 2000 census. It was incorporated upon May 15, 1906, after in the past being named North Ontario. Upland is located at the foot of the highest portion of the San Gabriel Mountains. The suburb is share of the Inland Empire, a metropolitan area situated directly east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Upland is located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains on an east–west trail that was used by the Native Americans and Spanish missionaries, part of what is now known as the Old Spanish Trail. To the west, the trail led to the San Gabriel Mission, which Spanish Missionaries built in 1771.

In 1774, Spanish trailblazer Juan Bautista de Anza acknowledged an overland route from Arizona to California, with share of the trail passing through present day Upland on the way to the San Gabriel Mission. Anza’s route went through Yuma, the San Gorgonio Pass and through the San Bernardino Valley. In 1775, Anza led a second expedition consisting of higher than 240 people upon a journey of beyond two thousand miles to the San Francisco Bay. En route, the expedition reached the San Gabriel Mission upon January 4, 1776. The expedition reached the San Francisco Bay upon June 27, 1776, where Anza founded the present day city of San Francisco. Five years later, in 1781, Spanish settlers followed Anza’s route to found the city of Los Angeles a few miles west of the San Gabriel Mission.

Following the Anza expedition, the San Gabriel Mission became an important stopping place for expeditions traveling in the midst of Arizona and California. The mission was the first place where supplies could be procured after crossing the desert, and as travel higher than this road increased, the mission approved to announce a supply station at some intermediate dwindling east. In 1810, a party of missionaries, soldiers, and Native Americans from San Gabriel mission, under the leadership of Padre Dumetz, were sent out to pick a location. On the 20th of May, 1810, they came into the San Bernardino Valley. This, according to the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, was the feast morning of Saint Bernardino of Siena, and they named the valley in his honor. The expedition named the Place around Upland “Cucamonga,” which in the Tongvan language meant “sand place.”