Name	San Francisco
Official name	City and County of San Francisco
Nickname	The City by the BayFog CityFrisco (''deprecated'')The City that Knows How (''antiquated'')Baghdad by the Bay (''antiquated'')The Paris of the West
settlement type	City and county
motto	''Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra''(Spanish for "Gold in Peace, Iron in War")
flag size	100px
image seal	Sfseal.png
seal size	100px
map caption	Location of San Francisco
pushpin map	USA2
pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
coordinates region	US-CA
subdivision type	Country
subdivision name	United States
subdivision type1	State
subdivision name1	California
government type	Mayor-Council
leader title	Mayor
leader name	Edwin M. Lee
leader title1	Board of Supervisors
leader name1
leader title2	State Assembly
leader name2	Fiona Ma (D)Tom Ammiano (D)
leader title3	State Senate
leader name3	Mark Leno (D)Leland Yee (D)
leader title4	U.S. House
leader name4	Nancy Pelosi (D)Jackie Speier (D)
established title	Founded
established date	June 29, 1776
established title1	Incorporated
established date1	April 16, 1850
founder	Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu
named for	Saint Francis of Assisi
unit pref	US
area footnotes
area total sq mi	231.89
area land sq mi	46.87
area water sq mi	185.02
area water percent	79.79
area metro sq mi	3524.4
elevation ft	52
elevation max ft	925
elevation min ft	0
population as of	2010
population total	805235
population density sq mi	17179.2
population	CSA: 7468390
population metro	4335391
population urban	3273190
population blank1 title	Demonym
population blank1	San Franciscan
timezone	Pacific Standard Time
utc offset	-8
timezone dst	Pacific Daylight Time
utc offset dst	-7
latns	N
Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
longew	W
coordinates display	8
postal code type	ZIP Code
postal code	94101–94112, 94114–94147, 94150–94170, 94172, 94175, 94177
area code	415
website	www.sfgov.org
footnotes	}}

San Francisco (), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of about on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square mile (6,632 people per km²). It is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 13th most populous city in the United States, with a population of 805,235 as of the 2010 Census.

In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi on the site. The California Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and thus transforming it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. During World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States.

Today, San Francisco is a popular international tourist destination, renowned for its chilly summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, and its famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home to more than 30 international financial institutions, helping to make San Francisco rank eighteenth in the world's top producing cities, ninth in the United States, and thirteenth place in the top twenty global financial centers.

History

thumb|left|Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores)The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people resided in several small villages when a Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay. Seven years later, on March 28, 1776, the Spanish established the Presidio of San Francisco, followed by a mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores).

Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended and its lands began to be privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.

thumb|left|Portsmouth Square in 1851The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. California was quickly granted statehood, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling.

Entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Early winners were the banking industry which saw the founding of Wells Fargo in 1852 and the Bank of California in 1864. Development of the Port of San Francisco and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the Eastern U.S. rail system via the newly completed Pacific Railroad (the construction of which the city had only reluctantly helped support) helped make the Bay Area a center for trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese railroad workers creating the city's Chinatown quarter. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene. thumb|left|upright=2.5|"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." –Jack London after the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake and fire]]

At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that would spread across the city and burn out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.

Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.

In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937 respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939–40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.

During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The UN Charter creating the UN was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.

Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, and in the 1980s the Manhattanization of San Francisco saw extensive high-rise development downtown. Port activity moved to Oakland, the city began to lose industrial jobs, and San Francisco began to turn to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim its historic downtown waterfront.

During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded, and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.

Geography

San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States at the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several islands—Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and a small portion of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .

San Francisco is famous for its hills. There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, and Russian Hill. Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks, a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.

The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.

San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunneling through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Climate

A popular quote incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate of California’s coast, "generally characterized by moist mild winters and dry summers." Since it is surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean, which moderates temperature swings and produces a remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation.

Among major U.S. cities, San Francisco has the coldest daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for June, July and August. During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low pressure area that draws winds from the North Pacific High through the Golden Gate, which creates the city's characteristic cool winds and fog. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods and during the late summer and early fall, which is the warmest time of the year.

Because of its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. The high hills in the geographic center of the city are responsible for a 20% variance in annual rainfall between different parts of the city. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and sometimes very cold and windy conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the eastern side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year.

Temperatures exceed on average only 28 days a year. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of and lows of . The rainy period of November to April is slightly cooler with high temperatures of and lows of . On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976.

The highest recorded temperature at the official National Weather Service office was on July 17, 1988, and June 14, 2000. The lowest recorded temperature was on December 11, 1932.

Cityscape

Neighborhoods

The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the city bordered by Market Street to the south. It is here that the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area featuring Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Nearby is San Francisco's Chinatown, established in the 1840s.

The Mission District was populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. In recent years rapid gentrification has spread, primarily along the Valencia Street corridor, which is strongly associated with modern hipster sub-culture. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. Historically known as Eureka Valley, the area now popularly called the Castro is the center of gay life in the city.

The city's Japantown district suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The nearby Western Addition became established with a large African American population at the same time. The "Painted Ladies", a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square, and the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake can be found in Pacific Heights. The Marina to the north is a lively area with many young urban professionals.

The Richmond, the vast region north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean, has a portion called "New Chinatown" but is also home to immigrants from other parts of Asia and Russia. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset with a predominantly Asian population. The Richmond and the Sunset are largely middle class and, together, are known as The Avenues. These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions: the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more Western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more Eastern portions. Bayview-Hunters Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of controversial plans for urban renewal.

The South of Market, once filled with decaying remnants of San Francisco's industrial past, has seen significant redevelopment. The locus of the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, by 2004 South of Market began to see skyscrapers and condominiums dot the area (see Manhattanization). Following the success of nearby South Beach, another neighborhood, Mission Bay, underwent redevelopment, anchored by a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco. Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.

Beaches and parks

Several of San Francisco's parks and nearly all of its beaches form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States with over 13 million visitors a year. Among the GGNRA's attractions within the city are Ocean Beach, which runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a vibrant surfing community, and Baker Beach, which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate and part of the Presidio, a former military base. Also within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park – a fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park.

There are more than 200 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park that houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are designated as endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.

Culture and contemporary life

In recent years, the wealth resulting from the IT boom from the nearby Silicon Valley, as well as from the recent Dot-Com booms has created a high standard of living in San Francisco, attracting white-collar workers to San Francisco from all over the world. Many neighborhoods that were once blue-collar, middle, and lower class have been gentrifying, as many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have risen to among the highest in the nation, creating a large, and upscale restaurant, retail, and entertainment scene. According to a 2008 quality of life survey of global cities, San Francisco has the second highest quality of living of any U.S. city. Due to the exceptionally high cost of living, many of the city's middle and lower class families have been leaving the city for the outer suburbs of the Bay Area, or for California's Central Valley.

Although the centralized commerce and shopping districts of the Financial District and the area around Union Square are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco was rated "most walkable" city by the website Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues that cater to both the daily needs of local residents while also serving many visitors and tourists. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafes and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, and 24th Street in Noe Valley. Others are less so, such as Irving Street in the Sunset, or Mission Street in the Mission. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.

The international character San Francisco has fostered since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which accelerated beginning in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind outside China.

Following the arrival of the "beat" writers and artists of the 1950s, to the societal changes that culminated with the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s, San Francisco became an epicenter of liberal activism, with Democrats and Greens dominating city politics. San Francisco has not voted more than 20% for a Republican presidential or senatorial candidate since 1988. In 2007, the city expanded its Medicaid and other indigent medical programs into the "Healthy San Francisco" program, which subsidizes certain medical services for eligible residents.

The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. One of the most popular destinations for gay tourists internationally, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, one of the largest and oldest pride parades.

Entertainment and performing arts

San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the U.S. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. The Herbst Theatre stages an eclectic mix of music performances, as well as public radio's ''City Arts & Lectures.''

The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s under concert promoter Bill Graham, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. ''Beach Blanket Babylon'' is a zany musical revue and a civic institution that has performed to sold-out crowds in North Beach since 1974.

The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has been a force in Bay Area performing arts since its arrival in San Francisco in 1967, regularly staging productions. San Francisco frequently hosts national touring productions of Broadway theatre shows in a number of vintage 1920s-era venues in the Theater District including the Curran, Orpheum, and Golden Gate Theatres.

Museums

The Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and now attracts more than 600,000 visitors annually. The Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake. It is administered by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which also operates the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The de Young's collection features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Prior to construction of its current copper-clad structure, completed in 2005, the de Young also housed the Asian Art Museum, which, with artifacts from over 6,000 years of history across Asia, moved into the former public library next to Civic Center in 2003.

Opposite the Music Concourse from the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences, a natural history museum that also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Its current structure, featuring a living roof, is an example of sustainable architecture and opened in 2008. The Palace of Fine Arts, built originally for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, has since 1969 housed the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum.

Media

The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen, whose daily musings attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco". The ''San Francisco Examiner'', once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid. ''Sing Tao Daily'' claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. Alternative weekly newspapers include the ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'' and ''SF Weekly''. ''San Francisco Magazine'' and ''7x7'' are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine ''Mother Jones'' is also based in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. The city's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909. KALW was the city's first FM radio station when it signed on the air in 1941. All major U.S. television networks have affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. There also are several unaffiliated stations, and BBC, CNN and ESPN have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. The city's first television station was KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948.

Public broadcasting outlets include both a television station and a radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. San Francisco–based CNET and Salon.com pioneered the use of the Internet as a media outlet.

Sports

The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) are the longest-tenured major professional sports franchise in the city. The team began play in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The 49ers won five Super Bowl titles in the 1980s and 1990s behind coaches Bill Walsh and George Seifert, and stars such as Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, and Jerry Rice.

Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants left New York for California prior to the 1958 season. Though boasting such stars as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, the club went 52 years until its first World Series title in 2010. The Oakland Athletics had swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, after Game 3 in San Francisco was infamously pre-empted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The Giants play at AT&T; Park, which opened in 2000, a cornerstone project of the South Beach and Mission Bay redevelopment.

At the collegiate level, the Dons of the University of San Francisco compete in NCAA Division I, where Bill Russell guided the program to basketball championships in 1955 and 1956. The San Francisco State Gators and the Academy of Art University Urban Knights compete in Division II. AT&T; Park has since 2002 hosted an annual post-season college football bowl game, currently named the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon attracts more than 21,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course, situated on the border with Daly City, has hosted the U.S. Open on four occasions, and will host it a fifth time in 2012. The public Harding Park Golf Course is an occasional stop on the PGA Tour. San Francisco will host the 2013 America's Cup yacht racing competition.

With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city, and the Embarcadero and Marina Green are favored sites for skateboarding. Extensive public tennis facilities are available in Golden Gate Park and Dolores Park, as well as at smaller neighborhood courts throughout the city. Boating, sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing are among the popular activities on San Francisco Bay, and the city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.

Economy

thumb|right|[[Alcatraz Island|Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year.]]

Tourism is the backbone of the San Francisco economy. Its frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. It is the city where Tony Bennett "left his heart," where the ''Birdman of Alcatraz'' spent many of his final years, and where Rice-a-Roni was said to be the favorite treat. San Francisco attracts the third-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the U.S. and claims Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf as the third-most popular tourist attraction in the nation. More than 16 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2007, injecting nearly $8.2 billion into the economy—both all-time high figures for the city. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is also among the top-ten North American destinations for conventions and conferences.

The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the "Wall Street of the West," home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, seven Fortune 500 companies, and a large support infrastructure of professional services—including law, public relations, architecture and design—also with significant presence in the city, San Francisco is designated as one of the ten Beta World Cities. The city ranks eighteenth in the world's list of cities by GDP, ninth in the United States, and is fifteenth place in the top twenty Global Financial Centres Index.

San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of its Bay Area neighbor San Jose and Silicon Valley to its south, sharing the need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. Due to such links with Silicon Valley, San Francisco became an epicenter of the Dot-Com bubble of the 1990s–2000s, and the subsequent Web 2.0 boom of the late 2000s. Many popular and prominent Dot-Com companies and "start-ups" such as Craigslist.org, Twitter, Salesforce.com, and the Wikimedia Foundation among others have established their head offices in San Francisco.

San Francisco has been positioning itself as a biotechnology and biomedical hub and research center. The Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus of UCSF, fosters a budding industry and serves as headquarters of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the public agency funding stem cell research programs statewide. As of 2009, there were 1,800 full-time biochemists and biophysicists employed in San Francisco, with an annual mean wage of $92,620.

Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments as lately, it has been particularly popular with entrepreneurs establishing "start-up" companies. The number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. The successful penetration of national big box and formula retail chains into the city has been made intentionally difficult by political and civic consensus. In an effort to buoy small privately owned businesses in San Francisco and preserve the unique retail personality of the city, the Small Business Commission supports a publicity campaign to keep a larger share of retail dollars in the local economy, and the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods in which formula retail establishments can set up shop, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.

The top employer in the city is the city government itself, employing 6.25% of the city's population, followed by University of California, San Francisco. Third, at 2.04%, is Wells Fargo, the largest private-sector employer.

Government

San Francisco—officially known as the City and County of San Francisco—is a consolidated city-county, a status it has held since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. Under the city charter, the government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches. The executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service. The 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation. The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors becomes acting mayor until the full Board elects an interim replacement for the remainder of the term. In 1978, Dianne Feinstein assumed the office following the assassination of George Moscone and was later selected by the Board to finish the term. In 2011, Edwin M. Lee was selected by the Board to finish the term of Gavin Newsom, who resigned to take office as Lieutenant Governor of California.

Because of its unique city-county status, local government exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex located in San Mateo County, in an unincorporated area adjacent to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.

The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007–2008 was just over $6 billion.

San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the U.S. Mint. Until decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Point—a legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.

Campaign ethics and bylaw enforcement is handled by the San Francisco Ethics Comission.

Demographics

Census data

The 2010 United States Census reported that San Francisco had a population of 805,235. The population density was 3,472.5 people per square mile (1,340.7/km²). The racial makeup of San Francisco was 390,387 (48.5%) White, 48,870 (6.1%) African American, 4,024 (0.5%) Native American, 267,915 (33.3%) Asian, 3,359 (0.4%) Pacific Islander, 53,021 (6.6%) from other races, and 37,659 (4.7%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 121,774 persons (15.1%).

The Census reported that 780,971 people (97.0% of the population) lived in households, 18,902 (2.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 5,362 (0.7%) were institutionalized.

There were 345,811 households, out of which 63,577 (18.4%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 109,437 (31.6%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 28,844 (8.3%) had a female householder with no husband present, 12,748 (3.7%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 21,677 (6.3%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 10,384 (3.0%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 133,366 households (38.6%) were made up of individuals and 34,234 (9.9%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26. There were 151,029 families (43.7% of all households); the average family size was 3.11.

The population was spread out with 107,524 people (13.4%) under the age of 18, 77,664 people (9.6%) aged 18 to 24, 301,802 people (37.5%) aged 25 to 44, 208,403 people (25.9%) aged 45 to 64, and 109,842 people (13.6%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38.5 years. For every 100 females there were 102.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.8 males.

There were 376,942 housing units at an average density of 1,625.5 per square mile (627.6/km²), of which 123,646 (35.8%) were owner-occupied, and 222,165 (64.2%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.3%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.4%. 327,985 people (40.7% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 452,986 people (56.3%) lived in rental housing units.

Other data

Separately, the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 856,095, as of January 1, 2010. With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city (among cities greater than 200,000 population). San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metropolitan Statistical Area and the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA) whose population is over seven million, making it the fifth largest in the United States as of the 2000 Census.

Like many larger U.S. cities, San Francisco is a minority-majority city, as non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half of the population. According to the 2010 Census, Asians of any nationality make up 33.3% of the population with those of Chinese ethnicity constituting the largest single ethnic group in San Francisco at 21.4% of the population; the other Asian groups are Filipinos (4.5%), Vietnamese (1.6%), Japanese (1.3%), Asian Indians (1.2%), Koreans (1.2%), Thais (0.3%), Burmese (0.2%), Cambodians (0.2%), and both Indonesians and Laotians make up less than 0.1% of the city's population. The Pacific Islander population is 0.4%, with about half of them being of Samoan descent. Hispanics of any race make up 15.0% of the population, mainly people of Mexican (7.4%), Salvadoran (2.0%), and other Central American descent (2.2%). San Francisco's African American population has declined in recent decades, from 13.4% in 1970 to 7.3%. The current percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of the state of California; conversely, the city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state. Native Californians form a relatively small percentage of the city's population: only 37.7% of its residents were born in California, while 25.2% were born in a different U.S. state. More than a third of city residents (35.6%) were born outside the United States.

According to the 2005 American Community Survey, San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15.4%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area.

Of all major cities, San Francisco ranks second behind Seattle for the percentage of residents with a college degree. Over 44% of adults within the city limits have a bachelor's or higher degree. USA Today reported that Rob Pitingolo, a researcher who measured college graduates per square mile, found that San Francisco had the highest rate at 7,031 per square mile, or over 344,000 total graduates in the city's .

San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136, and San Francisco ranks 8th of major cities worldwide in the number of billionaires known to be living within city limits. Following a national trend, an emigration of middle class families is contributing to widening income disparity and has left the city with a lower proportion of children, 14.5%, than any other large American city.

The city's poverty rate is 11.8% and the number of families in poverty stands at 7.4%, both lower than the national average. The unemployment rate stands at 9.5% as of January 2011. Homelessness has been a chronic and controversial problem for San Francisco since the early 1980s. The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city. Rates of reported violent and property crimes for 2009 (736 and 4,262 incidents per 100,000 residents, respectively) are slightly lower than for similarly sized U.S. cities.

{| |- |align="left" |

95.7% 48.5% 33.3% 6.1% 0.2% 0.4% 6.6% 4.7% 15.0% 41.9%

Demographic profile<		! 2010	! 2000	! 1990	! 1980
align="left">One race	93.5%	|
align="left"	White	|	49.7%	53.6%	59.2%
align="left"	Asian	|	30.8%	28.7%	22.0%
align="left"	Black or African American	|	7.8%	10.9%	12.7%
align="left"	American Indian and Alaska Native	|	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%
align="left"	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	|	0.5%	0.5%
align="left"	Some other race	|	6.5%	5.8%	5.6%
align="left"	Two or more races	|	4.0%
align="left"	Hispanic or Latino (of any race)	|	14.1%	13.3%	12.4%
align="left"	White alone	|	43.6%	46.0%	50.6%

|}

Education

Colleges and universities

The University of California, San Francisco is the sole campus of the University of California system entirely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top-five medical schools in the United States and operates the UCSF Medical Center, which ranks among the top 10 hospitals in the country. UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. All in all, UCSF operates 20 facilities across San Francisco. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution.

San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has close to 30,000 students and awards undergraduate and master's degrees in more than 100 disciplines. The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.

Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District. It is primarily a post-graduate institution focused on professional training in law and business, with smaller undergraduate programs linked to its graduate and professional schools.

With an enrollment of 13,000 students, Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the oldest art school west of the Mississippi. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent music school on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The California Culinary Academy, associated with the Le Cordon Bleu program, offers programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management.

Primary and secondary schools

Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, and the smaller School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Transportation

Roads and highways

right|thumb|The [[San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge|Bay Bridge connects downtown San Francisco via Yerba Buena Island with Oakland and the East Bay.]] Because of its unique geography—making beltways somewhat impractical—and the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few American cities that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. This trend continued following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when city leaders decided to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway, and voters approved demolition of a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.

Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. US 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. State Route 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, following the path of the historic El Camino Real and terminating shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The cross-country Lincoln Highway's western terminus is in Lincoln Park. Major east–west thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.

Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with about 40,000 residents commuting to work regularly by bicycle.

Pedestrian traffic is a major mode of transport. In 2011, Walk Score ranked San Francisco the second most walkable city in the United States.

Public transportation

A third of commuters in San Francisco used public transportation in 2005. Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail and subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses. The Metro streetcars run on surface streets in outlying neighborhoods but underground in the downtown area. Additionally, Muni runs the highly visible F Market historic streetcar line, which runs on surface streets from Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf (through Market Street), and the iconic San Francisco cable car system, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a regional rapid transit system that connects the San Francisco peninsula with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose. The line dates from 1863, and for many years was operated by Southern Pacific.

The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long-range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (Alameda & Contra Costa counties), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.

A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.

There is also commuter bus and special train service to the 49ers and Giant's games from Tri Delta Transit, Caltrain and other private operators as well.

Airports

San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is primarily near the cities of Millbrae and San Bruno, but also borders the most southern part of the city of South San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant, and the decision by Virgin America to base its operations out of SFO reversed the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America. The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2006, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world, handling 33.5 million passengers.

Seaports

The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the West Coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the West Coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought most ports to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete, and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland and Port of Richmond. A few active berths specializing in break bulk cargo remain alongside the Islais Creek Channel.

Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.

Cycling

Cycling is a growing mode of transportation in San Francisco. Annual bicycle counts conducted by the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) in 2010 showed the number of cyclists at 33 locations had increased 58% from the 2006 baseline counts. The MTA estimates that about 128,000 trips are made by bicycle each day in the city, or 6% of total trips. Improvements in cycling infrastructure in recent years, including additional bike lanes and parking racks, has made cycling in San Francisco safer and more convenient. Since 2006, San Francisco has received a Bicycle Friendly Community status of "Gold" from the League of American Bicyclists.

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in San Francisco

List of California public officials charged with crimes, San Francisco

List of people associated with San Francisco

Neighborhoods in San Francisco

San Francisco Nature Education

Notes

References

Further reading

Winfield, P.H., ''The charter of San Francisco'' (The fortnightly review Vol. 157-58:2 (1945), p. 69-75)

External links

Official website for the City and County of San Francisco

Bay Area Public Transit Info, Schedules and Maps

Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco

San Francisco History Center San Francisco Public Library

Category:California counties Category:Consolidated city–counties in the United States Category:Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area Category:Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area Category:County seats in California Category:Hudson's Bay Company trading posts Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:Populated coastal places in California Category:Populated places established in 1776 Category:IOC Session Host Cities

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Birth date	November 01, 1973
Birth place	Mangalore, Karnataka, India
Birthname	Aishwarya Rai
Othername	Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Residence	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Spouse	Abhishek Bachchan (2007–present)
Occupation	actor, model
Yearsactive	1991–present
Signature	}}

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (''née'' Aishwarya Rai, , pronounced əjɕʋərjaː rəj; born 1973) is an Indian film actress. She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994. Rai has acted in over 40 films in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali.

Often cited by the media as the "most beautiful woman in the world", Rai made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film ''Iruvar'' (1997), and had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie ''Jeans'' (1998). She gained the attention of Bollywood through the film ''Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'' (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 2002 she appeared in Bhansali's ''Devdas'', for which she won her second Filmfare Best Actress Award.

After a setback in her career during 2003–2005, she appeared in ''Dhoom 2'' (2006), which was her biggest commercial success in India. She later appeared in films like ''Guru'' (2007), ''Jodhaa Akbar'' (2008), and ''Enthiran'' (2010), which were commercially and critically successful. Rai has established herself as one of the leading contemporary actresses in Bollywood.

Rai's off-screen roles include duties as brand ambassador for various charity organisations and campaigns. She is married to fellow actor Abhishek Bachchan. In 2009 she was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award given by the Government of India.

Early life

Rai was born into a Tulu-speaking Bunt family in Mangalore, Karnataka. Her father, Krishnaraj, was a marine biologist, while her mother, Brindya, is a housewife. She has one elder brother, Aditya Rai, who is an engineer in the merchant navy. He co-produced one of her movies, ''Dil Ka Rishta'' (2003).

The family moved to Mumbai, where Rai attended the Arya Vidya Mandir High School. Rai did her intermediate schooling at Jai Hind College for a year, and then joined DG Ruparel College in Matunga, securing 90 percent in the HSC exams. She trained in classical dance and music for five years during her teens. Her favourite subject was zoology, so she initially considered a career in medicine. With plans to become an architect, she enrolled at Raheja College, but later gave up her education to pursue a career in modelling.

Modelling career

One of her earliest modelling assignment was, when she was in the ninth grade, for Camlin Pencils. One of her professors at Jai Hind College took pictures of her which were published in a fashion magazine. In 1991 Rai took part in the Ford Supermodel Contest and also appeared in ''Vogue Magazine''. She has been on the cover of ''Vogue'' three times.

Rai became popular after appearing in a Pepsi commercial with actor Aamir Khan. She modelled for Longines watches, Coca-Cola, Lakmé Cosmetics, Casio pager, Philips, Palmolive, Lux, and Fuji films. She continued to model while pursuing her studies in architecture. She was named the official brand ambassador for De Beers diamonds in India.

In the 1994 ''Miss India'' contest, she won second place, behind Sushmita Sen, and was crowned ''Miss India World''. She went on to win the ''Miss World'' title the same year, where she also won the ''Miss Photogenic'' award. After winning the pageant, she gave up her studies and spent one year reigning as Miss World in London. Rai continued to pursue a career as a model until she became an actress.

Film career

Early career (1997–98)

Rai made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil biopic film ''Iruvar'' (1997), where she worked alongside Mohanlal. The film was a critical success and won many awards, including Best Film award at the Belgrade International Film Festival, and two National Film Awards. Rai appeared in dual roles, one of which was a depiction of political leader and former actress J. Jayalalithaa. Rai made her Bollywood debut in the film in ''Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya'', opposite Bobby Deol, which released the same year; the film was unsuccessful at the box office. Her third project, ''Jeans'' (1998), a high-budget Tamil film directed by S. Shankar, was a commercial success. The film included the song "Poovukkul", written by Vairamuthu, in which Rai's character is compared to the seven wonders of the world and described as the eighth. The film was India's official entry to the Academy Awards in that year.

Career (1999–2002)

In 1999 Rai starred in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ''Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'', opposite Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan. The film had Rai playing Nandini, who is forced to marry Devgan despite being in love with another man (Khan). Her husband tries to help her locate her previous love, and his caring attention eventually wins her over. Rai's portrayal won her critical acclaim, with a review on Rediff.com stating, "Aishwarya looks beautiful as usual ... This film will most likely draw her accolades from all over, may be even get her recognised as an actress the way Manisha Koirala did in ''Khamoshi''. In many scenes, there is no trace of makeup and she looks very fresh". The film was her first box office success in Bollywood, and earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award.

In the same year she appeared in Subhash Ghai's ''Taal'', in which she played Mansi, a young village woman who becomes a big pop star after being hurt by her lover, played by Akshay Khanna. The film was an average grosser in India but was a big success outside India, especially in the United States, where it became the first Indian film in the top 20 on ''Variety's'' box office list. Her performance was praised, with a reviewer from Rediff.com writing, "After being praised for her looks and acting talent in ''Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'', Aishwarya has excelled in ''Taal''. She looks ethereal and unlike the former film, has a very sober and soft role. Though she looks pained and tragic in most of the film, she does a good job of a woman who is very protective of her father and one who doesn't think twice before rejecting a lover who has insulted her father." She received another Best Actress nomination from the Filmfare Awards for her work in the film.

In 2000 she appeared in Mansoor Khan's ''Josh'' alongside Shahrukh Khan and Chandrachur Singh, in which she plays a Catholic named Shirley who falls in love with the sibling of her brother's enemy. The film was a commercial success. Later that year she appeared in Satish Kaushik's ''Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai'', opposite Anil Kapoor. It was a moderate success, and her performance earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award nomination. Later that year she played a supporting role in Aditya Chopra's ''Mohabbatein'', alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. The second-highest grosser of the year, the film was a major commercial success, and earned her a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award nomination. Later that year, she starred in the Tamil film ''Kandukondain Kandukondain'', alongside Mammooty, Ajith Kumar, and Tabu. Rai plays Tabu's younger sibling, a dreamer at heart, whose hopes come crashing down when she discovers she's been cheated by her lover. Directed by Rajiv Menon, the movie was a successful venture commercially.

In 2002 Rai appeared alongside Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ''Devdas'', an adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel of the same name. She played the role of Paro (Parvati), the love interest of the protagonist, played by Khan. The film received a special screening at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. It became the highest-grossing film of the year in India and overseas, earning a revenue of Rs domestically. ''Devdas'' won numerous awards, including 10 Filmfare Awards, and Rai received her second Filmfare Best Actress Award for her performance.

Professional setback (2003–05)

In 2003 she acted in Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali film ''Chokher Bali'', an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore's novel of the same name. She portrays the character of a young woman called Binodini, who is left on her own when her sickly husband dies soon after they are married. The film was critically acclaimed and did well at the box office. That year she appeared in the Bollywood film ''Dil Ka Rishta'', with Arjun Rampal, and Rohan Sippy's ''Kuch Na Kaho'', alongside Abhishek Bachchan, neither of which fared well at the box office.

In 2004 she appeared alongside Martin Henderson in ''Bride and Prejudice'', Gurinder Chadha's Bollywood-style English adaptation of Jane Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice''. She played Lalita Bakshi, the film's version of Austen's character Elizabeth Bennet. Based on 131 reviews, the film has a rating of 64 percent at the review website Rotten Tomatoes. She played a negative role for the first time in Rajkumar Santoshi's ''Khakee'', which also featured Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, and Jayapradha. The film was a box office success. In the same year she worked with director Rituparno Ghosh for the second time, in ''Raincoat'', where she starred alongside Ajay Devgan. The film was highly acclaimed by critics, with Rai receiving rave reviews for her performance.

In 2005 she appeared in ''Shabd'', a film based on a love triangle, alongside Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan. The film was unsuccessful at the box office; it received average reviews from critics. Her next release was Paul Mayeda Berges's ''The Mistress of Spices'', based on the novel of the same name by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, in which she starred alongside Dylan McDermott. The film received negative reviews from critics, and was a commercial failure. The same year she made a special appearance in a hugely popular seven-minute dance sequence for the song "Kajra Re", with Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, in Shaad Ali's ''Bunty Aur Babli''.

Recent work (2006–present)

In 2006 Rai portrayed the title role in J P Dutta's ''Umrao Jaan'', the story of a courtesan and poetess from 19th-century Lucknow. The movie is the second adaptation of the Urdu novel ''Umrao Jaan Ada'' (1905), by Mirza Hadi Ruswa. Rai's work received mixed reviews, and the film was a critical and commercial failure. Critics particularly felt the new version is poor when compared to the acclaimed 1981 version by Muzaffar Ali, which starred Rekha in the title role. BBC critic Poonam Joshi wrote, "While only Aishwarya could emulate the grace and poise of Rekha, she doesn't quite capture the intensity of Umrao's abiding melancholy", commenting that "her incandescent beauty and artistry... does indeed keep the audience watching, though not necessarily emotionally engaged." Later that year she appeared as a master thief, Sunheri, in the Yash Raj Films production of ''Dhoom 2'', directed by Sanjay Gadhvi. The ensemble cast included Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, and Uday Chopra. The movie was a blockbuster, and became the highest grossing film of the year in India, earning revenues of over Rs domestically. A controversy arose regarding a scene containing a kiss between her and Hrithik Roshan. Rai's performance received mostly negative reviews, with a reviewer on Rediff.com writing, "Ash's character too is all gloss and no depth. You seldom feel any tension in her behaviour and expressions as she accompanies the master thief on potentially dangerous missions. Sunehri enters the film nearly 50 minutes after its opening in a disguise. In no time, she is wearing the flimsiest of clothes. Once she opens her mouth—and she does it two minutes after appearing in the film—she spoils the image. There is no sensuality any more, and half an hour later, one wonders what made the master thief fall for her." Nonetheless, her performance earned her a sixth nomination for Filmfare Best Actress Award.

In 2007 she appeared in Mani Ratnam's ''Guru'' as Sujata. Speculated to be based on the life of Indian businessman Dhirubhai Ambani, it is a rag to riches story about an ambitious small-town man who ends up as the owner of the biggest corporation in India. The film premièred at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, Canada, the first Indian film to have a mainstream international premiere in that country. The film was critically acclaimed, and performed well at the box office. Critical reception for Rai was mixed. While Nikhat Kazmi from ''The Times of India'' wrote that she is "just okay, and fails to register the growth in her character", Rediff.com's Raja Sen described it as "arguably her finest performance, visible especially when she takes over the film's climax." Rai received her seventh Filmfare nomination for Best Actress for her performance. In the same year she starred alongside Naveen Andrews and Miranda Richardson in Jag Mundhra's British film ''Provoked'', as Kiranjit Ahluwalia, an Non-resident Indian woman who kills her abusive husband after facing severe domestic violence. Rai received mostly positive reviews for her portrayal. It was screened in the Marché du Film Cannes Film Market during the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Ahluwalia sat next to Rai during the screening, reportedly holding her hand and sobbing during the most violent scenes. In the same year Rai appeared as a warrior from Kerala named Mira in Doug Lefler's epic film ''The Last Legion'', alongside Sir Ben Kingsley, Colin Firth, and Thomas Sangster. The film was a critical failure.

In 2008 Rai starred alongside Hrithik Roshan in Ashutosh Gowariker's historical drama ''Jodhaa Akbar''. The story is a partly fictionalised account of the life of Muslim Mughal emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, played by Roshan, and his Hindu wife Jodha Bai, played by Rai. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning revenues of over Rs domestically. Rai's performance in the film was praised by critics, with Rajeev Masand writing, "Aishwarya Rai is wonderfully restrained and uses her eyes expertly to communicate so much, making this one of her finest outings on screen". She earned her eighth nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards for her performance. Later that year she co-starred with husband Abhishek Bachchan and father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan in Ram Gopal Verma's ''Sarkar Raj'', a sequel to his previous film, ''Sarkar''. She plays the CEO of a major power company that is proposing a new power plant in rural Maharashtra. The film was a critical and commercial success.

In 2009 she appeared in Harald Zwart's spy comedy film ''The Pink Panther 2'', playing the role of criminology expert Sonia Solandres. Like its predecessor, the sequel received negative reviews from critics, and did a moderate business of $34,590,360 at the U.S box office. In 2010 she collaborated with Mani Ratnam for a bilingual project, two films featuring Rai portraying a character based on the goddess Sita. The films were shot simultaneously, with Rai's role being one of the only roles which were played by the same performer in both versions. Upon release, the project received mixed reviews. Though both her portrayals of Ragini were praised, the Hindi version—''Raavan'', alongside Abhishek Bachchan—failed commercially, whilst the Tamil version—''Raavanan''—was successful. The Hindi version of the film got decent reviews in various US media, including the ''New York Times'' and ''Los Angeles Times'', with the former saying, "Raavan has Bollywood glamour aplenty, with the lovely if occasionally dramatically challenged Aishwarya Rai Bachchan", and the latter describing Rai as a scene-stealer.

Rai paired with Rajinikanth in the science fiction Tamil film ''Enthiran'' (2010), directed by S. Shankar. The film—the most expensive ever made in India—was released worldwide in 2010, and is the highest-grossing Indian film when all its versions are totalled. She appeared in Vipul Shah's ''Action Replayy'' opposite Akshay Kumar, which received mixed reviews from critics. Rai's final release in 2010 was ''Guzaarish'', her third collaboration with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and actor Hrithik Roshan. The film tells the story of Ethan Mascarenhas (Roshan), a former magician who has been quadriplegic for twelve years; after years of struggle he files an appeal to the court for euthanasia. Rai played Ethan's strict, devoted, and supportive nurse Sophie D'Souza. The film opened to positive reviews, and Rai's portrayal was praised. According to Nikhat Kazmi, "Aishwarya is a stunning picture of fire and grace, walking away with certain scenes by her sheer vitality." In 2011 she received her ninth nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. As of May 2011, she is set to appear in Rajkumar Santoshi's next film, ''Ladies and Gentlemen'', along with Abhishek Bachchan, and in Madhur Bhandarkar's next directorial venture, ''Heroine''. The shooting of both films was postponed, due to Rai's pregnancy. She will not appear in ''Heroine'', which is going forward with Kareena Kapoor.

Social work

In 1999 Rai participated in a world tour called the ''Magnificent Five'', along with Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Akshaye Khanna, and Twinkle Khanna. In the same year, she was appointed as Longines Ambassador of Elegance. In 2003 she became the first Indian actress to be a jury member at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2003 she became a global brand ambassador of L'Oreal, alongside Andie Macdowell, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz. Rai is the brand ambassador for The Eye Bank Association of India's nationwide campaign to promote eye donation in India. In 2005 she became a brand ambassador for Pulse Polio, a campaign established by the Government of India in 1994 to eradicate polio in India. In the same year, Rai was appointed spokesperson for the International Year of Microcredit, raising awareness of the main goals and priorities of the United Nations' poverty alleviation efforts.

In February 2005 Rai performed alongside other Bollywood stars at the ''HELP! Telethon Concert'', an event to raise money for the victims of the 2004 tsunami earthquake. Along with other members of the Bachchan family, she laid the foundation of a special school for underprivileged girls in Daulatpur village in Uttar Pradesh in 2008. Construction is being funded by the Bachchan family, and the school will be named after Rai. She appeared along with various other Bollywood actors at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The performance showcased Indian culture as a lead-up to India hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

In 2009 Rai was appointed as the first Goodwill Ambassador of Smile Train, an international charity that provides free Cleft lip and palate surgery to children in need. Her work with Smile Train will focus not only on India, but on 76 different developing countries around the world.

Personal life

In 1999 Aishwarya began dating Bollywood actor Salman Khan; their relationship was often reported in the media until the couple separated in 2001. Rai cited "abuse (verbal, physical and emotional), infidelity and indignity" on the part of Khan as reasons for ending the relationship. In a 2009 ''Times of India'' article, Khan denied ever beating her: "It's not true that I hit a woman."

Rai is married to actor Abhishek Bachchan, they met in 1997. Their engagement was announced on 2007 and later confirmed by his father, Amitabh Bachchan. The couple married on 2007 according to traditional Hindu rites of the Bunt community, to which she belongs. Token North Indian and Bengali ceremonies were also performed. The wedding took place in a private ceremony at the Bachchan residence, "Prateeksha", in Juhu, Mumbai. They have been described as a supercouple in the Indian media. Rai is very close to her family and lived with them in Bandra, Mumbai, until her marriage. Rai is Hindu and deeply religious.

Rai gave birth to a baby girl on 16 November 2011.

Awards and honours

Aishwarya Rai is a two-time winner of the Filmfare Best Actress Award, and has been nominated for Filmfare Awards eleven times. She has won numerous times at the International Indian Film Academy Awards, Star Screen Awards, Zee Cine Awards, and others. In 2009 Rai was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest Indian civilian award, for her contributions to Indian cinema. In 2001 Forbes named Rai among the top five Indian movie stars. In a reader poll conducted by UK's ''Hello!'' magazine, she was voted "the most attractive woman of 2003". In the same year, Rai appeared in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's annual "Hot List". In 2004 she was chosen by ''TIME'' magazine as one of the world's most influential people, and appeared on the cover of its 2003 Asia edition. In October 2004 a wax figure of Rai was put on display in London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum. She was the sixth Indian and the second Bollywood personality—after her father-in-law, Amitabh Bachchan—to get this honour. In 2007 the same figure was displayed at Madame Tussaud's Museum in Times Square in New York.

In 2005 she was the subject of a ''60 Minutes'' profile on , which said that "at least according to thousands of Web sites, Internet polls and even Julia Roberts", she was "the world's most beautiful woman". The same year, a tulip in the Netherlands was named "''Aishwarya Rai''" after her. Also in 2005, Mattel released a limited edition of Barbie dolls of Aishwarya Rai in the United Kingdom. The British magazine ''Maxim'' ranked Rai first on their list of "Hottest Women of India".

Rai appeared on such shows as ''Late Show with David Letterman'', and was the first Bollywood personality to appear on ''Oprah's'' "Women Across the Globe" segment. In 2005 Harpers and Queen's list of "Most Beautiful Women in The World" ranked her ninth. In May 2006 Aishwarya was featured in ''People Magazine'' as one of the "World's Most Beautiful People". The UK magazine ''Eastern Eye'' ranked her third in the list of "Asia's Sexiest Women" in 2006, and she was ranked eighth in 2009. In 2008 American television channel E!: Entertainment listed Aishwarya's eyes as the sexiest on their Sexiest Body Parts list. In 2009 she made appearances on Martha Stewart's show ''Martha'' and on the ''The Tyra Banks Show''. In the same year Forbes listed Rai at 387th out of 1,411 actors on their list of the most bankable stars in Hollywood. She is the highest-ranked Indian actor on the list.

In 2009, Rai refused to accept the second-highest Order Of France, ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'', as her father was suffering from a serious illness, and she wanted her whole family to attend the award ceremony. She is the fourth Indian actor—after Sivaji Ganesan, Nandita Das, and Shahrukh Khan—to be chosen for the award. Amitabh Bachchan was chosen for another Order Of France, the Legion of Honour. In June 2009 she was declared the ''Female Star of The Decade'' at the tenth International Indian Film Academy Awards, held in Macau. In December 2010 she was declared the "Actress of the Decade" at the BIG Star Entertainment Awards. In March 2011 Rai was honoured by Karnataka Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa at World Kannada Meet (Vishwa Kannada Sammelana) for her contributions to the arts. Later that month she was presented with the "Decade of Global Achievement Honour" by FICCI. She attended the 83rd Academy Awards, along with her husband, Abhishek.

Filmography

scope="col"	Year	Title	Language	Role	Notes
1997	''Iruvar''		Pushpa / Kalpana
1997	''Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya''		Ashi Kapoor
1998		Tamil	Madhumita	Dubbed into Telugu and Hindi with the same title
1999	''Aa Ab Laut Chalen''	Hindi	Pooja
1999	''Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam''	Hindi	Nandini	Filmfare Best Actress Award
1999	''Ravoyi Chandamama''			Special appearance
1999		Hindi	Mansi
2000		Hindi	Champakali	Guest appearance
2000	''Kandukondain Kandukondain''	Tamil	Meenakshi Bala	Dubbed into Telugu as ''Priyuralu Pilichindi''
2000		Hindi	Shirley
2000	''Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai''	Hindi	Preeti Virat	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress Award
2000	''Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke''	Hindi	Sahiba Grewal
scope="row">2000	''Mohabbatein''	Hindi	Megha	Nominated—Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award
2001		Hindi	Sonia
2002	''Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam''	Hindi	Suman	Guest appearance
2002		Hindi	Komal Rastogi
scope="row">2002	''23 March 1931: Shaheed''	Hindi		Special appearance
2002		Hindi	Parvati (Paro)	Filmfare Best Actress Award
2002		Hindi	Herself	Special appearance in song "Ishq Kamina"
2003			Binodhini
2003	''Dil Ka Rishta''	Hindi	Tia Sharma
2003	''Kuch Naa Kaho''	Hindi	Namrata Shrivastav
2004	''Bride & Prejudice''	English	Lalita Bakshi	Dubbed into Hindi as ''Balle Balle Amritsar to LA''
2004	''Khakee''	Hindi	Mahalakshmi
2004	''Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na''	Hindi	Diya Malhotra
2004		Hindi	Neerja	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress Award
2005		Hindi	Antara Vashist/Tammana
2005	''Bunty Aur Babli''	Hindi		Special appearance in the song "Kajra Re"
2005		English	Tilo
2006		Hindi	Umrao Jaan
2006	''Dhoom 2''	Hindi	Sunehri	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress Award
2007		Hindi	Sujata	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress AwardDubbed into 2007		English	[[Kiranjit Ahluwalia">Tamil language
2007		English	[[Kiranjit Ahluwalia	Dubbed into Hindi with the same title
2007	''The Last Legion''	English	Mira
2008	''Jodhaa Akbar''	Hindi	Mariam-uz-Zamani>Jodhaa Bai	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress AwardDubbed into 2008	''[[Sarkar Raj">Tamil language
2008	''[[Sarkar Raj''	Hindi	Anita Rajan
2009	''The Pink Panther 2''	English	Sonia Solandres	Dubbed into French as ''La Pantera Rosa 2''
2010	''Raavan''	Hindi	Ragini Sharma
2010	''Raavanan''	Tamil	Ragini Subramaniam
2010	''Enthiran''	Tamil	Sana
2010	''Action Replayy''	Hindi	Mala
2010	''Guzaarish''	Hindi	Sofia D'Souza	Nominated—Filmfare Best Actress Award

See also

List of Indian film actresses

References

Further reading

External links

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Category:1973 births Category:Living people Category:Femina Miss India winners Category:Filmfare Awards winners Category:Indian female models Category:Indian film actors Category:Indian Hindus Category:Mangaloreans Category:Miss World 1994 delegates Category:Miss World winners Category:Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:People from Mangalore Category:People from Mumbai Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri Category:Tulu people Category:University of Mumbai alumni Category:Tamil film actors

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