María Clara de los Santos y Alba is a fictional character in Jose Rizal's novel Noli Me Tángere (1887). The beautiful María Clara is the childhood sweetheart and fiancée of the protagonist, Crisóstomo Ibarra, who returns to his Filipino hometown of San Diego to marry her. After Ibarra is implicated in a fake revolution and is thought to be dead, María Clara opts to become a nun rather than marry another man. She remains unhappy for the rest of her life and her death is later mentioned in the sequel, El filibusterismo (1891).

In the novel, María Clara is regarded as the most beautiful and celebrated lady in the town of San Diego. A devout Roman Catholic, she became the epitome of virtue; "demure and self-effacing" and endowed with beauty, grace and charm, she was promoted by Rizal as the "ideal image" of a Filipino woman who deserves to be placed on the "pedestal of male honour". In Chapter 5, María Clara and her traits were further described by Rizal as an "Oriental decoration" with "downcast" eyes and a "pure soul".

Because of her parentage, María Clara had Eurasian features, described by Rizal thus:

"María Clara did not have the small eyes of her father: like her mother she had them large and black, beneath long lashes; she was beautiful and smiling when she played, sad and soulful and pensive when she was not laughing. Since childhood her hair had an almost golden hue; her nose, of a correct profile, was neither sharp nor flat; her mouth reminded one of her mother's, small and perfect, with two beautiful dimples on her cheeks. Her skin had the fine texture of an onion layer, the whiteness of cotton, according to her enthusiastic relatives. They saw traces of Capitan Tiago's paternity in the small and well-rounded ears of María Clara."

The beautiful María Clara is the childhood sweetheart and fiancée of the protagonist, Crisóstomo Ibarra, who returns to his Filipino hometown of San Diego to marry her. After Ibarra is implicated in a fake revolution and is thought to be dead, María Clara opts to become a nun rather than marry another man. She remains unhappy for the rest of her life and her death is later mentioned in the sequel, El filibusterismo (1891).

María Clara is the only daughter of the wealthy Kapitán Tiago and Doña Pia Alba. However, it is later revealed that her biological father is Father Dámaso, a priest who is one of the novel's antagonists, who became her godfather. Interpretations vary on whether Dámaso seduced or/and raped Pia Alba.

María Clara had been described in her childhood as everybody's idol, growing up among smiles and loves. Although Noli only touches upon her briefly in chapters, she is depicted as playful, exchanging wit and bantering with Ibarra, as well as expressing jealous possession when talking about him to her friends.

She is also very kind and considerate, and notices people whom others do not; she was the only person who noticed Elías during the fishing excursion and offered him biscuits. During the eve of the feast of San Diego, she also approached and offered her locket to a leper, despite her friends' warnings and shows of disgust.