San Francisco
—  City and county  —
City and County of San Francisco
San Francisco from the Marin Headlands, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground
Flag Official seal of San Francisco Seal
Nickname(s): The City by the Bay Fog City Frisco (deprecated)[1][2][3] The City that Knows How (antiquated)[4] Baghdad by the Bay (antiquated)[5] The Paris of the West[6]
Motto: Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra (Spanish for "Gold in Peace, Iron in War")
Location of San Francisco
San Francisco Location in the United States
Coordinates: 37°46′45.48″N 122°25′9.12″W / 37.7793°N 122.4192°W / 37.7793; -122.4192Coordinates: 37°46′45.48″N 122°25′9.12″W / 37.7793°N 122.4192°W / 37.7793; -122.4192
Country	United States
State	California
Founded	June 29, 1776
Incorporated	April 15, 1850[7]
Founder	Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Francisco Palóu
Named for	Francis of Assisi
Government
• Type	Mayor-council government
• Mayor of San Francisco	Edwin M. Lee
• San Francisco Board of Supervisors	Supervisors Eric Mar Mark Farrell David Chiu Carmen Chu Christina Olague Jane Kim Sean Elsbernd Scott Wiener David Campos Malia Cohen John Avalos
• California State Assembly	Fiona Ma (D) Tom Ammiano (D)
• California State Senate	Mark Leno (D) Leland Yee (D)
• United States House of Representatives	Nancy Pelosi (D) Jackie Speier (D)
Area[8]
• City and county	231.89 sq mi (600.6 km2)
• Land	46.87 sq mi (121.4 km2)
• Water	185.02 sq mi (479.2 km2)  79.79%
• Metro	3,524.4 sq mi (9,128 km2)
Elevation	52 ft (16 m)
Highest elevation	925 ft (282 m)
Lowest elevation	0 ft (0 m)
Population (2010)[8][9]	CSA: 7,563,460
• City and county	805,235
• Density	17,179.2/sq mi (6,632.9/km2)
• Urban	3,273,190
• Metro	4,335,391
Demonym	San Franciscan
Time zone	Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8)
• Summer (DST)	Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7)
ZIP Code	94101–94112, 94114–94147, 94150–94170, 94172, 94175, 94177
Area code(s)	415
Website	www.sfgov.org

San Francisco (/ˌsæn frənˈsɪskoʊ/), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.6 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland.^[10] The only consolidated city-county in California,^[11] it encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles (121 km²)^[12] 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.^[13] 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. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area has a population of 4,335,391.^[14]

In 1776, colonists from Spain established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Francis of Assisi a few miles away.^[15] 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,^[16] 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,^[17] 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.^[18] 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 one of the top tourist destinations in the world,^[19] ranking 35th out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide,^[20] and is renowned for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and its Chinatown. The city is also a principal banking and finance center, and the home to more than 30 international financial institutions,^[21] helping to make San Francisco rank 18th in the world's top producing cities, 8th in the United States, and 12th place in the top twenty global financial centers.^[22]

History[link]

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.^[23] 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.^[24] 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,^[25] 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,^[26] 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.^[27]

Portsmouth Square in 1851

The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers. With their sourdough bread in tow,^[28] prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia,^[29] raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.^[16] 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.^[30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32]

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^[33]) 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. In 1870, Asians made up 8% of the population.^[34] 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.^[35] By 1890, San Francisco's population approached 300,000, making it the eighth largest city in the U.S. at the time. At 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.^[36]

"Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone." –Jack London after the 1906 earthquake and fire^[37]

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 burned 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.^[38] More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core.^[17] Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands.^[39] More than half the city's population of 400,000 were left homeless.^[40] 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.

The Palace of Fine Arts at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition

Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed.^[41] 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.^[42]

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.^[43] 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.^[18] 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.

The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, during World War II.

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.^[44] 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.^[45][46] From 1950 to 1980, the city lost over 10 percent of its population.

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.^[47] Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love.^[48] 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.^[49]

Bank of America completed 555 California Street in 1969 and the Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972,^[50] igniting a wave of Manhattanization that lasted until the late 1980s, a period which saw extensive high-rise development downtown.^[51] The 1980s also saw a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people in the city, an issue that remains today, despite many attempts to address it.^[52] 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 and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

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, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified.^[53] By 2000, the city's population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded and their employees left. However, many new startups soon took their place during the Web 2.0 boom, and high technology and entrepreneurship continue to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.^[54]

Geography[link]

The San Francisco Peninsula

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, 27 miles (43 km) 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 232 square miles (600 km²).

Cars navigate Lombard Street to descend Russian Hill.

San Francisco is famous for its hills. There are more than 50 hills within city limits.^[55] 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 925 feet (282 m) high and is capped with a 103-foot (31 m) tall cross built in 1934.^[56] 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.^[57] However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage.^[58]

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.^[59]

Climate[link]

A popular quote incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."^[60][61] San Francisco's climate is characteristic of the cool-summer Mediterranean climate^[62] of California’s coast, "generally characterized by moist mild winters and dry summers."^[63] 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.

Fog is a regular feature of San Francisco summers.

Among major U.S. cities, San Francisco has the coldest daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for June, July and August.^[64] 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.^[65] 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 75 °F (24 °C) on average only 28 days a year.^[66] The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with average high temperatures of 64–71 °F (18–22 °C) and lows of 51–56 °F (11–13 °C). The rainy period of November to April is slightly cooler, with high temperatures of 58–64 °F (14–18 °C) and lows of 46–51 °F (8–11 °C). On average, there are 67 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages 20.4 inches (518.16 mm).^[66] Snow is extraordinarily rare, with only 10 instances recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976.^[67]

The highest recorded temperature at the official National Weather Service office was 103 °F (39 °C) on July 17, 1988, and June 14, 2000. The lowest recorded temperature was 27 °F (−3 °C) on December 11, 1932.^[68] The U.S. National Weather Service provides a helpful visual aid^[69] graphing the information in the table below to display visually by month the annual typical temperatures, the past year's temperatures, and record temperatures.

Cityscape[link]

San Francisco just before sunset from Twin Peaks.

San Francisco Cityscape from Treasure Island.

Neighborhoods[link]

San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest and one of the largest in North America.

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 the waterfront tourist attractions of Fisherman's Wharf, and Pier 39 that feature Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry in many of the restaurants there. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street, North Beach, the city's Little Italy and the former epicenter of the Beat Generation, and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Between Russian Hill and North Beach is San Francisco's Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America.^{[72][73][74][75]}

In the south-east quadrant of the city is the Mission District which 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.^[76] In recent years, gentrification has changed the demographics of parts of the Mission from Latino, to twenty-something professionals living the hipster lifestyle. Noe Valley to the southwest and Bernal Heights to the south are both increasingly popular among young families with children. West of the Mission, the area historically known as Eureka Valley, now popularly called the Castro, was once a working-class Scandinavian and Irish area. It has become North America's first and best known gay village, and is now the center of gay life in the city.^[77]

The city's Japantown district, once the largest Japantown in North America, 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. Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture, later became home to expensive boutiques^[78] and a few controversial chain stores,^[79] although it still retains some bohemian character. Nearby, are the "Painted Ladies", a row of well-restored Victorian homes, stand alongside Alamo Square. To the north of the Haight Ashbury, is Pacific Heights, a wealthy neighborhood that features the mansions built by the San Francisco business elite in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. Directly north of Pacific Heights facing the waterfront, is the Marina, a neighborhood popular with young professionals that was largely built on reclaimed land from the Bay.^[80] The far western quadrant of the city is the Richmond, is a vast, mostly middle class neighborhood north of Golden Gate Park that extends to the Pacific Ocean, is home to immigrants from other parts of Asia as well as many Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. South of Golden Gate Park lies the Sunset, also a large middle class area with a predominantly Asian population.^[81] Together, these areas 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. The predominately African American, 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, which was once San Francisco's industrial core, has seen significant redevelopment. Due to gentrification stemming from the dot-com boom during the late 1990s, and again during the Web 2.0 boom of the late 2000s, South of Market began to see skyscrapers, Live-Work lofts, 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, a mostly residential neighborhood that features sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.