The California State University, San Bernardino is located in the northeastern part of the city. The university also hosts the Coussoulis Arena. Other attractions in San Bernardino include the Fox Performing Arts Center, the McDonalds Museum, which is located in the original site of the worlds first McDonalds, the California Theatre, the San Bernardino Mountains and The San Manuel Amphitheater, the largest outdoor amphitheater in the United States. In addition, the city is home to the Inland Empire 66ers of San Bernardino baseball team, they play their home games at Arrowhead Credit Union Park in downtown San Bernardino.

The City of San Bernardino, California, occupies much of the San Bernardino Valley, which indigenous tribes people originally referred to as "The Valley of the Cupped Hand of God." The Tongva Indians also called the San Bernardino area Waaach in their language.[4] Upon seeing the immense Arrowhead geological monument on the side of the San Bernardino Mountains, they found the hot and cold springs to which the rock formation seemed to point.

The City of San Bernardino is one of the oldest communities in the State of California. Named for Bernardino of Siena on May 20, 1810, San Bernardino, in its present-day location, was not largely settled until 1851 when California entered the Union.