Selected for its location next to a spring, it began as a campground, originally known as New Prospect Camp Ground until late 1858. Officially chartered on December 11 of that year, Alpharetta (supposedly Greek for "first town") served as the county seat of Milton County until the end of 1931 when Milton was merged with Fulton County to avoid bankruptcy during the Great Depression.[10]
Despite its poor start, and being one of the farthest-out large suburbs in metro Atlanta, it now features several mid-rise buildings, which are home to many high-tech companies including Hewlett-Packard, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, RedPrairie, Radiant Systems, Infor, Lucent, Nortel, IBM, Sun Microsystems, AT&T, Siemens, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Alltel, E-Trade, Hansgrohe, General Electric, and ChoicePoint.
As of the census of 2000, there were 34,854 people, 13,911 households, and 8,916 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,631.6 people per square mile (630.0/km²). There were 14,670 housing units at an average density of 686.7/sq mi (265.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 84.9% White, 6.8% African American, 0.5% Native American, 6.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.1% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.53% of the population. 2.4% of the population is Mixed-Race/Multiracial. The population has been gradually increasing over the last five years.
There were 13,911 households out of which 36.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.1% were married couples living together, 7.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.9% were non-families. 27.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.2% had someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 3.13.
In the city the population was spread out with 27.0% under the age of 18, 7.2% from 18 to 24, 40.5% from 25 to 44, 19.4% from 45 to 64, and 5.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33. For every 100 females there were 98.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.9 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $84,207, and the median income for a family was $116,175. Males had a median income of $69,275 versus $49,935 for females. The per capita income for the city was $51,432. About 2.9% of families and 5.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.4% of those under age 18 and 7.8% of those age 65 or over.