The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
San Pablo, and
Suisun Bay
Suisun Bay ( ; Wintun for "where the west wind blows") is a shallow tidal estuary (a northeastern extension of the San Francisco Bay) in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the ent ...
estuaries
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...
in
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
. The Bay Area is defined by the
Association of Bay Area Governments
The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a regional planning agency incorporating various local governments in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It encompasses nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay. Those counties are ...
to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries:
Alameda
An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to:
Places Canada
*Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan
**Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan
Chile
...
,
Contra Costa,
Marin
Marin (French) or Marín (Spanish "sailor") may refer to:
People
* Marin (name), including a list of persons with the given name or surname
* MaRin, in-game name of professional South Korean ''League of Legends'' player Jang Gyeong-hwan (born 19 ...
,
Napa,
San Mateo,
Santa Clara,
Solano,
Sonoma, and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties that do not border the bay such as
Santa Cruz and
San Benito (more often included in the
Central Coast regions); or
San Joaquin,
Merced
Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1 ...
, and
Stanislaus (more often included in the
Central Valley).
The core cities of the Bay Area are
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
San Jose, and
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
.
Home to approximately 7.76 million people,
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
's nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, progressive politics, world-class universities, technology companies, and affluence. The larger federal classification, the
combined statistical area
Combined statistical area (CSA) is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) term for a combination of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) across the 50 US states and the territory of Puerto Ric ...
of the region which includes fourteen counties,
is the second-largest in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
(after the
Greater Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the
41st-largest urban area in the world with 9.67 million people. The Bay Area's population is ethnically diverse: roughly three-fifths of the region's residents are
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
,
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
,
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, or
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
(with the other two-fifths being
non-Hispanic White American), all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region.
The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Bay Area dates back to 8000–10,000 BCE (from
shell mounds in the
Coyote Hills). In 1769, the Bay Area was inhabited by
Ohlone
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
people when a
Spanish exploration party led by
Gaspar de Portolá
Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira (January 1, 1716 – October 10, 1786) was a Spanish military officer, best known for leading the Portolá expedition into California and for serving as the first List of governors of California before 1850, Governor ...
entered the Bay – the first documented European visit to the Bay Area. After Mexico
established independence from Spain in 1821, the region was briefly controlled by the Mexican government until the United States seized the territory in 1846 during the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
. Soon after,
discovery of gold in California attracted a flood of treasure seekers, many using ports in the Bay Area as an entry point. During the early years of California's statehood, state legislative business rotated between three locations in the Bay Area before a permanent state capital was established in
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
. A
major earthquake
Seismic magnitude scales are used to describe the overall strength or "size" of an earthquake. These are distinguished from seismic intensity scales that categorize the intensity or severity of ground shaking (quaking) caused by an earthquake at ...
leveled the city of San Francisco and environs in 1906, but the region quickly rebuilt in time to host the
1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the Bay Area played a major role in America's war effort in the
Asiatic-Pacific Theater
The Asiatic-Pacific Theater was the theater of operations of U.S. forces during World War II in the Pacific War during 1941–1945. From mid-1942 until the end of the war in 1945, two U.S. operational commands were in the Pacific. The Pacific O ...
, with the
San Francisco Port of Embarkation
The San Francisco Port of Embarkation (SFPOE) was a United States Army command responsible for movement of supplies and troops to and from the Pacific during World War II with extensive facilities in the San Francisco area. SFPOE was established ...
, of which
Fort Mason
Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...
was one of fourteen installations and location of the headquarters, acting as a primary embarkation point for American forces. In 1945, the
United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
was signed in San Francisco, establishing the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, and in 1951, the
Treaty of San Francisco
The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It w ...
re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the
Allied Powers. Since then, the Bay Area has experienced numerous political, cultural and artistic movements, developing unique local genres in music and art and establishing itself as a hotbed of
progressive politics
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techn ...
. Economically, the post-war Bay Area saw huge growth in the financial and technology industries, creating an economy with a
gross domestic product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...
of over $700 billion, and home to the third-highest concentration of
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
companies in the United States (as of 2018).
Despite its urban character, the San Francisco Bay is one of California's most ecologically important habitats, providing key
ecosystem services
Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. Th ...
such as filtering pollutants and sediments from the rivers and supporting a number of
endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
. In addition, the Bay is known for its stands of
coast redwoods
''Sequoia sempervirens'' ()''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995:606–607 is the sole living species of the genus ''Sequoia (genus), Sequoia'' in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast r ...
, many of which are protected in state and county parks. The region is additionally known for the complexity of its landforms, the result of millions of years of
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
movements. Because the Bay Area is crossed by six major
earthquake fault
In geology, a fault is a Fracture (geology), planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of Rock (geology), rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust (geolo ...
s, the region is particularly exposed to hazards presented by large earthquakes. The climate is temperate and generally very mild, and is conducive to outdoor recreational and athletic activities such as hiking, running, and cycling. The Bay Area is host to
six professional sports teams and is a cultural center for music, theater, and the arts. It is also host to higher education institutions, including
research universities
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational know ...
such as
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
and the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. Home to 101 municipalities and nine counties, governance in the Bay Area involves numerous local and regional jurisdictions, often with broad and overlapping responsibilities. Over time,
droughts
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
and
wildfires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
have increased in frequency and become less seasonal and more year-round, further straining the region's
water security
Water security is the focused goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. T ...
.
Boundaries
![Bayarea map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Bayarea_map.png)
The borders of the San Francisco Bay Area are not officially delineated, and the unique development patterns influenced by the region's
topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
, as well as unusual
commute
Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to:
* Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work
Mathematics
* Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...
patterns caused by the presence of three central cities and employment centers located in various suburban locales, has led to considerable disagreement between local and federal definitions of the area.
Because of this, professor of
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
Richard Walker claimed that "no other U.S. city-region is as definitionally challenged
s the Bay Area
S, or s, is the nineteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ess'' (pronounced ), plural ''esses''.
History ...
"
When the region began to rapidly develop during and immediately after World War II, local planners settled on a nine-county definition for the Bay Area, consisting of the counties that directly border the
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
San Pablo, and
Suisun estuaries
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...
:
Alameda
An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to:
Places Canada
*Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan
**Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan
Chile
...
,
Contra Costa,
Marin
Marin (French) or Marín (Spanish "sailor") may refer to:
People
* Marin (name), including a list of persons with the given name or surname
* MaRin, in-game name of professional South Korean ''League of Legends'' player Jang Gyeong-hwan (born 19 ...
,
Napa,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
San Mateo,
Santa Clara,
Solano, and
Sonoma counties. Today, this definition is accepted by most local governmental agencies including
San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board,
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) is a public agency that regulates the stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties of California's San Francisco Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San ...
,
the
San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority
The San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority (SFBRA) is a government agency dedicated to preserving and restoring San Francisco Bay and its shoreline. SFBRA was created by the California legislature in 2008. It is headquartered in Oakland. In 2016, ...
, the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the
Association of Bay Area Governments
The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a regional planning agency incorporating various local governments in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It encompasses nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay. Those counties are ...
, the latter two of which partner to deliver a Bay Area Census using the nine-county definition.
Various
U.S. Federal government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...
agencies use definitions that differ from their local counterparts' nine-county definition. For example, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) which regulates broadcast, cable, and satellite transmissions, includes nearby
Colusa,
Lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
and
Mendocino counties in their "San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose"
media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...
, but excludes eastern Solano county. On the other hand, the United States
Office of Management and Budget
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
, which designates
metropolitan statistical area
In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally Incorporated town, incorporate ...
s (MSAs) and
combined statistical area
Combined statistical area (CSA) is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) term for a combination of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) across the 50 US states and the territory of Puerto Ric ...
s (CSA) for populated regions across the country, has five MSAs which include, wholly or partially, areas within the nine-county definition, and one CSA which includes all nine counties plus neighboring
San Benito,
Santa Cruz,
San Joaquin,
Merced
Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1 ...
, and
Stanislaus counties.
The Association of Bay Area Health Officers (ABAHO), which is an organization that has fought local outbreaks of
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
, consists of the public health officers of the nine Bay Area counties plus
Santa Cruz,
Monterey
Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under both ...
, and
San Benito counties outside of this region and the city of
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
.
Subregions
Among locals, the nine-county Bay Area can be further divided into five sub-regions: the
East Bay
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...
,
North Bay,
South Bay,
Peninsula
A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...
, and the city of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. Although geographically located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, the city of San Francisco is not considered part of the "Peninsula" subregion, but as a separate entity.
The "
East Bay
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...
" is the densest region of the Bay Area outside of San Francisco and includes cities and towns in Alameda and Contra Costa counties centered around
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
. As one of the larger subregions, the East Bay includes a variety of enclaves, including the suburban
Tri-Valley
The Tri-Valley area is grouping of three valleys in the East Bay (California), East Bay region of California's San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area. The three valleys are Amador Valley, San Ramon Valley, and Livermore Valley. The Tri-Valley encompass ...
area and the highly urban western part of the subregion that runs alongside the bay. The "
Peninsula
A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...
" subregion includes the cities and towns on the San Francisco Peninsula, excluding the titular city of San Francisco. Its eastern half, which runs alongside the Bay, is highly populated, while its less populated western coast traces the coastline of the Pacific Ocean and is known for its open space and hiking trails. Roughly coinciding with the borders of San Mateo County, it also includes the northwestern Santa Clara County cities of
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
,
Mountain View, and
Los Altos. The "South Bay" includes all of the rest of the cities in Santa Clara County, centered around
San Jose, the largest city in Northern California. It is roughly synonymous with
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
due to its high concentration of tech companies, although the industry also has a significant presence in the rest of the Bay Area. The "
North Bay" includes Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano counties, and is the largest and least populated subregion. The western counties of Marin and Sonoma are encased by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the bay on the east and are characterized by its mountainous and woody terrain. Sonoma and Napa counties are known internationally for their grape vineyards and
wineries
A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, b ...
, and Solano County to the east, centered around
Vallejo, is the fastest growing region in the Bay Area.
History
![Mission San Jose natives](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Mission_San_Jose_natives.jpg)
The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the Bay Area dates to around 10,000
B.C. (Coyote Hills Shell Mound) along the shores of the bay, with evidence pointing to even earlier settlement in
Point Reyes
Point Reyes (, meaning "Point of the Kings") is a prominent cape and popular Northern California tourist destination on the Pacific coast. Located in Marin County, it is approximately west-northwest of San Francisco. The term is often applied ...
in
Marin County
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...
. The
Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ' ...
an and
Costanoan Ohlone people, who were living in the Bay Area at the time of first European contact, were possibly descended from
Siberian
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
tribes who arrived at around 1,000 BC by sailing over the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
and following the salmon migration.
The Ohlone lived in about forty or so tribes spread throughout the lands adjacent to the
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
and as far south as
Point Sur
Point Sur State Historic Park is a California State Park on the Big Sur coastline of Monterey County, California, United States, south of Rio Road in Carmel. The 1889 Point Sur Lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places.
History ...
near
Monterey Bay
Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area and its major city at the south of the bay, San Jose. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by a ...
.
![SanFrancisco1851a](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/SanFrancisco1851a.jpg)
The first European claim to any of the area occurred in June 1579 when
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...
landed at Drakes Bay near Point Reyes. Even though he claimed the region for
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
as ''
Nova Albion
New Albion, also known as ''Nova Albion'' (in reference to Albion, an archaic name for Britain), was the name of the continental area north of Mexico claimed by Francis Drake, Sir Francis Drake for Kingdom of England, England when he landed on ...
'' or
New Albion
New Albion, also known as ''Nova Albion'' (in reference to an archaic name for Britain), was the name of the continental area north of Mexico claimed by Sir Francis Drake for England when he landed on the North American west coast in 1579. Thi ...
the English made no immediate follow up to the claim. In November 1595, a
Spanish exploration party led by
Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho (Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño in Spanish; c. 1560–1602), was a Portuguese explorer, born in Sesimbra (Portugal), appointed by the king Philip II ( es, Felipe II de España; pt, Filipe I de Portugal) to sail along ...
also landed at
Drakes Bay
Drakes Bay (Coast Miwok: ''Tamál-Húye'') is a wide bay named so by U.S. surveyor George Davidson in 1875 along the Point Reyes National Seashore on the coast of northern California in the United States, approximately northwest of San Fran ...
and claimed the region for Spain's
King Philip II as ''Puerto y Bahía de San Francisco''.
The San Francisco Bay itself remained undiscovered by Europeans until members of the
Portolá expedition
thumbnail, 250px, Point of San Francisco Bay Discovery
The Portolá expedition ( es, Expedición de Portolá) was a Spanish voyage of exploration in 1769–1770 that was the first recorded European land entry and exploration of the interior of t ...
, while trekking along the California coast, encountered it in 1769 when the bay blocked their continued journey north. In 1806, a Spanish expedition led by
Gabriel Moraga
Gabriel Moraga (1765 – June 14, 1823) was a Sonoran-born Californio explorer and army officer. He was the son of the expeditionary José Joaquín Moraga who helped lead the de Anza Expedition to California in 1774, Like his father, Moraga is on ...
began at the Presidio, traveled south of the bay, and then east to explore the
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...
. In 1821, Mexico
gained its independence from Spain and the Bay Area became part of the Mexican province of
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
, a period characterized by
ranch life and visiting
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
trappers.
Mexico's control of the territory would be short-lived, however, and in 1846 a party of settlers
occupied
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
Sonoma Plaza
Sonoma Plaza (Spanish: ''Plaza de Sonoma'') is the central plaza of Sonoma, California. The plaza, the largest in California, was laid out in 1835 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, founder of Sonoma.
Description
This plaza is surrounded by many his ...
and proclaimed the independence of the new
Republic of California
The California Republic ( es, La República de California), or Bear Flag Republic, was an unrecognized breakaway state from Mexico, that for 25 days in 1846 militarily controlled an area north of San Francisco, in and around what is now Son ...
.
That same year, the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
began, and American captain
John Berrien Montgomery
John Berrien Montgomery (1794 – March 25, 1872) was an officer in the United States Navy who rose up through the ranks, serving in the War of 1812, Mexican–American War and the American Civil War, performing in various capacities including the ...
sailed the into the bay and seized San Francisco, which was then known as
Yerba Buena
Yerba buena or hierba buena is the Spanish name for a number of aromatic plants, most of which belong to the mint family. ''Yerba buena'' translates as "good herb". The specific plant species regarded as ''yerba buena'' varies from region to regi ...
, and raised the
American flag
The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...
for the first time over
Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most densel ...
.
![Sutters Mill](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Sutters_Mill.jpg)
In 1848,
James W. Marshall
James Wilson Marshall (October 8, 1810 – August 10, 1885) was an American carpenter and sawmill operator, who on January 24, 1848 reported the finding of gold at Coloma, California, a small settlement on the American River about 36 miles no ...
's discovery of gold in the
American River
, name_etymology =
, image = American River CA.jpg
, image_size = 300
, image_caption = The American River at Folsom
, map = Americanrivermap.png
, map_size = 300
, map_caption ...
sparked the
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
, and within half a year 4,000 men were panning for gold along the river and finding $50,000 per day.
The promise of fabulous riches quickly led to a stampede of wealth-seekers descending on
Sutter's Mill
Sutter's Mill was a water-powered sawmill on the bank of the South Fork American River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California. It was named after its owner John Sutter. A worker constructing the mill, James W. Marshall, found gold t ...
. The Bay Area's population quickly emptied out as laborers, clerks, waiters, and servants joined the rush to find gold, and California's first newspaper, ''
The Californian'', was forced to announce a temporary freeze in new issues due to labor shortages.
By the end of 1849, news had spread across the world and newcomers flooded into the Bay Area at a rate of one thousand per week on their way to California's interior,
including the first large influx of
Chinese immigrants to the U.S. The rush was so great that vessels were abandoned by the hundreds in San Francisco's ports as crews rushed to the goldfields.
The unprecedented influx of new arrivals spread the nascent government authorities thin, and the military was unable to prevent desertions. As a result, numerous vigilante groups formed to provide order, but many tasked themselves with forcibly moving or killing local
Native Americans, and by the end of the Gold Rush, two thirds of the indigenous population had been killed.
During this same time, a
constitutional convention was called to determine California's application for
statehood
A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "sta ...
into the United States. After statehood was granted, the capital city moved between three cities in the Bay Area: San Jose (1849–1851),
Vallejo (1851–1852), and
Benicia
Benicia ( , ) is a waterside city in Solano County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the ...
(1852–1853) before permanently settling in
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
in 1854. As the Gold Rush wound down, wealth generated from the endeavor led to the establishment of
Wells Fargo Bank
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and inter ...
and the
Bank of California
The Bank of California was opened in San Francisco, California, on July 4, 1864, by William Chapman Ralston and Darius Ogden Mills. It was the first commercial bank in the Western United States, the second-richest bank in the nation, and considered ...
, and immigrant laborers attracted by the promise of wealth transformed the demographic makeup of the region. Construction of the
First transcontinental railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...
from the
Oakland Long Wharf
The Oakland Long Wharf was an 11,000-foot railroad wharf and ferry pier along the east shore of San Francisco Bay located at the foot of Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Oakland Long Wharf was built, beginning 1868, by the Central Pacific Railr ...
attracted so many
laborers from China that by 1870, eight percent of San Francisco's population was of Asian origin. The completion of the railroad connected the Bay Area with the rest of the United States, established a truly national marketplace for the trade of goods, and accelerated the urbanization of the region.
![Post-and-Grant-Avenue-Look](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Post-and-Grant-Avenue-Look.jpg)
In the early morning of April 18, 1906,
a large earthquake with an epicenter near the city of San Francisco hit the region. Immediate casualty estimates by the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
's relief operations were 498 deaths in San Francisco, 64 deaths in
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
*Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* Sa ...
, and 102 in or near San Jose, for a total of about 700. More recent studies estimate the total death count to be over 3,000, with over 28,000 buildings destroyed. Rebuilding efforts began immediately.
Amadeo Peter Giannini
Amadeo Pietro Giannini (), also known as Amadeo Peter Giannini or A. P. Giannini (May 6, 1870 – June 3, 1949) was an American banker who founded the Bank of Italy, which became Bank of America. Giannini is credited as the inventor of many moder ...
, owner of the
Bank of Italy
The Bank of Italy (Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', informally referred to as ''Bankitalia''), (), is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, via Nazionale, Rome. The bank's curre ...
(now known as the
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
), had managed to retrieve the money from his bank's vaults before fires broke out through the city and was the only bank with
liquid
A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...
funds readily available and was instrumental in loaning out funds for rebuilding efforts.
Congress immediately approved plans for a reservoir in
Hetch Hetchy Valley
Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years bef ...
in
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...
, a plan they had denied a few years earlier, which now provides drinking water for 2.4 million people in the Bay Area. By 1915, the city had been sufficiently rebuilt and advertised itself to the world during the
Panama Pacific Exposition
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cost ...
that year, although the effects of the quake hastened the loss of the region's dominant status in California to the
Los Angeles metropolitan area
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
.
![UnitedNationsconference](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/UnitedNationsconference.jpg)
During the
1929 stock market crash
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
and subsequent
economic depression
An economic depression is a period of carried long-term economical downturn that is result of lowered economic activity in one major or more national economies. Economic depression maybe related to one specific country were there is some economic ...
, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed, while the region attempted to spur job growth by simultaneously undertaking two large infrastructure projects: construction of the
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Pen ...
, which would connect San Francisco with
Marin County
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...
, and the
Bay Bridge, which would connect San Francisco with Oakland and the East Bay. After the United States joined
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1941, the Bay Area became a major domestic military and naval hub, with large shipyards constructed in
Sausalito
Sausalito (Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Sausalito's p ...
and across the East Bay to build ships for the war effort.
The Army's San Francisco Port of Embarkation was the primary origin for Army forces shipping out to the
Pacific Theater of Operations. That command consisted of fourteen installations including Fort Mason, the
Oakland Army Base
The Oakland Army Base, also known as the Oakland Army Terminal, is a decommissioned United States Army base in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. The base was located at the Port of Oakland on Maritime Street just south of the eastern entran ...
,
Camp Stoneman
Camp Stoneman was a United States Army facility located in Pittsburg, California. It served as a major troop staging area for and under the command of the San Francisco Port of Embarkation (SFPOE). The camp operated during World War II and the Kor ...
and
Fort McDowell in San Francisco Bay and the sub port of Los Angeles.
After the war, the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
was chartered in San Francisco to help prevent the kind of devastation that occurred over the past decade, and in September 1951, the
Treaty of San Francisco
The , also called the , re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It w ...
to re-establish peaceful relations between Japan and the
Allied Powers was signed in San Francisco, entering into force a year later. In the years immediately following the war, the Bay Area saw a huge wave of immigration as populations increased across the region. Between 1950 and 1960, San Francisco welcomed over 100,000 new residents, inland suburbs in the East Bay saw their populations double,
Daly City
Daly City () is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, with population of 104,901 according to the 2020 census. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its ...
's population quadrupled, and
Santa Clara's population quintupled.
By the early 1960s, the Bay Area and the rest of
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
became the center of the
counterculture movement
The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...
.
Telegraph Avenue
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campu ...
in
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
and the
Haight-Ashbury
Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...
neighborhood in San Francisco were seen as centers of activity,
with the hit American
pop song
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...
''
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is an American pop music song, written by John Phillips, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey ...
'' further enticing like-minded individuals to join the movement in the Bay Area and leading to the
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
. In the proceeding decades, the Bay Area would cement itself as a hotbed of
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
activism,
student activism
Student activism or campus activism is work by students to cause political, environmental, economic, or social change. Although often focused on schools, curriculum, and educational funding, student groups have influenced greater political e ...
,
opposition to the Vietnam War
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social move ...
and other
anti-war movements
A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pea ...
, the
black power movement, and the
gay rights movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
.
At the same time, San Jose and the rest of the South Bay began to rapidly develop as it began to transition from a largely agricultural-based economy into the hotbed of the
high-tech industry
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
.
Fred Terman, the director of a top-secret research project at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
during World War II, joined the faculty at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in order to reshape the university's engineering department. His students, including
David Packard
David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–6 ...
and
William Hewlett, would later help usher in the region's high-tech revolution.
In 1955,
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company in what came to be known as Silicon Valley to wo ...
opened for business near Stanford, and although the business venture was a financial failure, it was the first
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
company in the Bay Area, and the talent that it attracted to the region eventually led to a high-tech cluster of companies later known as
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
.
![Nasdaq Composite dot-com bubble](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Nasdaq_Composite_dot-com_bubble.svg)
In 1989, in the middle of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
match between two Bay Area baseball teams, the
Loma Prieta earthquake
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of t ...
struck and caused widespread infrastructural damage, including the failure of the
Bay Bridge, a major link between San Francisco and
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
. Even so, the Bay Area's technology industry continued to expand and growth in Silicon Valley accelerated that the
United States census confirmed that year that San Jose had overtaken San Francisco in terms of population. The commercialization of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
in the middle of the decade rapidly created a
speculative bubble
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be c ...
in the high-tech economy known as the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
. This bubble began collapsing in the early 2000s and the industry continued contracting for the next few years, nearly wiping out the market. Companies like
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
and
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
managed to weather the crash however, and following the industry's return to normalcy, their market value increased significantly.
Even as the growth of the technology sector transformed the region's economy,
progressive politics
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techn ...
continued to guide the region's political environment. By the turn of the millennium,
non-Hispanic whites
Non-Hispanic whites or Non-Latino whites are Americans who are classified as "white", and are not of Hispanic (also known as "Latino") heritage. The United States Census Bureau defines ''white'' to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Amer ...
, the largest ethnic group in the United States, were only half of the population in the Bay Area as immigration among minority groups accelerated.
During this time, the Bay Area was the center of the
LGBT rights movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
: in 2004, San Francisco began issuing
marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a first in the United States, and four years later a majority of voters in the Bay Area rejected California
Proposition 8
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a constitutional amendment, state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the California state elections, November 2008, Novem ...
, which sought to constitutionally restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples but ultimately passed statewide. The Bay Area was also the center of contentious protests concerning racial and
economic inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...
. In 2009, an
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
man named
Oscar Grant was fatally shot by
Bay Area Rapid Transit police officers, precipitating widespread protests across the region and even riots in Oakland. His name was symbolically tied to the
Occupy Oakland
Occupy Oakland refers to a collaboration and series of demonstrations in Oakland, California that started in October 2011. As part of the Occupy movement, protestors have staged occupations, most notably at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakla ...
protests two years later that sought to fight against social and economic inequality.
Following the
Inauguration of Donald Trump
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States marked the commencement of Donald Trump's term as president and Mike Pence as vice president. An estimated 300,000 to 600,000 people attended the public ceremony hel ...
as
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
in 2017, the Bay Area became a center of resistance to his administration, beginning with widespread protests in concert with the nationwide
Women's March Women's March may refer to:
* Women's March on Versailles, a 1789 march in Paris
* Women's Sunday, a 1908 suffragette march in London
* Woman Suffrage Procession, a 1913 march and rally in Washington, D.C.
* Women's March (South Africa), a 1956 mar ...
a day later, followed by frequent public feuds between Trump and various Bay Area political, cultural, and business figures over issues of race and immigration.
In March 2020, in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, all residents of 6 Bay Area counties were required by local health authorities to
stay-at-home order
A stay-at-home order, safer-at-home order, movement control order (more common in Southeast Asia), or lockdown restrictions (in the United Kingdom) – also referred to by loose use of the terms (self-) quarantine, (self-) isolation, or lockdow ...
s under a
shelter-in-place
Shelter-in-place (SIP; also known as a shelter-in-place warning, SAME code SPW) is the act of seeking safety within the building one already occupies, rather than evacuating the area or seeking a community emergency shelter. The American Red Cro ...
, the first such order issued in the United States. Residents who were found outside and were not homeless, seeking emergency or health relief, or getting essential products such as food, were committing misdemeanors under to the order. The order was later expanded to cover the entire state of California three days later.
In late 2020, protests over the
murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...
took place in the city from May 28 into October.
Geography
Climate
The Bay Area is located in the
warm-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
zone (
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
''Csb'') that is a characteristic of California's coast, featuring mild to cool winters with occasional rainfall, and warm to hot, dry summers.
It is largely influenced by the cold
California Current
The California Current is a cold water Pacific Ocean current that moves southward along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia and ending off southern Baja California Sur. It is considered an Eastern boundary ...
, which penetrates the natural mountainous barrier along the coast by traveling through various gaps.
In terms of
precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
, this means that the Bay Area has pronounced seasons. The winter season, which roughly runs between November and March, is the source of about 82% of annual precipitation in the area. In the South Bay and further inland, while the winter season is cool and mild, the summer season is characterized by warm sunny days,
while in San Francisco and areas closer to the Golden Gate strait, the summer season is periodically affected by fog.
Due to the Bay Area's diverse topography, the result of the clashing
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
s, the region is home to numerous
microclimates
A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squa ...
that lead to pronounced differences in climate and temperature over short distances.
Within the city of San Francisco, natural and artificial topographical features direct the movement of wind and fog, resulting in startlingly varied climates between city blocks. Along the
Golden Gate Strait, oceanic wind and fog from the Pacific Ocean are able to penetrate the mountain barriers inland into the Bay Area.
During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low pressure area that draws winds from the
North Pacific High
The North Pacific High is a semi-permanent, subtropical anticyclone located in the northeastern portion of the Pacific Ocean, located northeast of Hawaii and west of California. It is strongest during the northern hemisphere summer and shifts towa ...
through the Golden Gate, which creates the city's
characteristic cool winds and fog.
The microclimate phenomenon is most pronounced during this time, when fog penetration is at its maximum in areas near the Golden Gate strait,
while the South Bay and areas further inland are sunny and dry.
Along the San Francisco peninsula, gaps in the
Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...
, one south of
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain is horst fault block mountain located in northern San Mateo County, California; with some northern slopes crossing over into southern San Francisco, it is also surrounded by San Francisco Bay and the cities of Brisbane, Colma ...
and another in Crystal Springs, allow oceanic weather into the interior, causing a cooling effect for cities along the Peninsula and even as far south as San Jose. This weather pattern is also the source for delays at
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle E ...
. In Marin county north of the Golden Gate strait, two gaps north of
Muir Woods
"Muir" is the Scots word for " moorland", and Scots Gaelic for "sea", and is the etymological origin of the surname and Clan Muir/Mure/Moore in Scotland and other parts of the world.
Places United States
* Muir, Willits, California, a former un ...
bring cold air across the
Marin Headlands
The Marin Headlands is a hilly peninsula at the southernmost end of Marin County, California, United States, located just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge, which connects the two counties and peninsulas. The entire area is pa ...
, with the cooling effect reaching as far north as
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
*Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* Sa ...
.
Further inland, the East Bay receives oceanic weather that travels through the Golden Gate strait, and further diffuses that air through the
Berkeley Hills
The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la C ...
,
Niles Canyon
Niles Canyon is a canyon in the San Francisco Bay Area formed by Alameda Creek, known for its heritage railroad and silent movie history. The canyon is largely in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, while the western portion of the canyo ...
and the Hayward Pass into the
Livermore Valley
The Livermore Valley, historically known as the Valle de San José (Valley of San José), is a valley in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region. The city of Livermore is located in the valley.
Geography
The valley is bound ...
and
Altamont Pass
Altamont Pass, formerly Livermore Pass, is a low mountain pass in the Diablo Range of Northern California between Livermore in the Livermore Valley and Tracy in the San Joaquin Valley. The name is actually applied to two distinct but nearby c ...
. Here, the resulting breeze is so strong that it is home to one of the world's largest array of
wind turbines
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
. Further north, the
Carquinez Strait
The Carquinez Strait (; Spanish: ''Estrecho de Carquinez'') is a narrow tidal strait in Northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay. The strait is lo ...
funnels the ocean weather into the
San Joaquin River Delta, causing a cooling effect in
Stockton and
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, so that these cities are also cooler than their
Central Valley counterparts in the south.
Ecology
Marine wildlife
![Beaver Yearling Grooming Alhambra Creek 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Beaver_Yearling_Grooming_Alhambra_Creek_2008.jpg)
The Bay Area is home to a diverse array of wildlife and, along with the connected
San Joaquin River Delta represents one of California's most important ecological habitats. California's
Dungeness crab
The Dungeness crab (''Metacarcinus magister'') is a species of crab inhabiting eelgrass beds and water bottoms along the west coast of North America. It typically grows to across the carapace and is a popular seafood. Its common name comes from ...
, Pacific
halibut
Halibut is the common name for three flatfish in the genera '' Hippoglossus'' and ''Reinhardtius'' from the family of right-eye flounders and, in some regions, and less commonly, other species of large flatfish.
The word is derived from ''h ...
, and the California
scorpionfish
The Scorpaenidae (also known as scorpionfish) are a family of mostly marine fish that includes many of the world's most venomous species. As their name suggests, scorpionfish have a type of "sting" in the form of sharp spines coated with venom ...
are all significant components of the bay's
fisheries
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life; or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both ...
. The bay's
salt marsh
A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...
es now represent most of California's remaining salt marsh and support a number of endangered
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
and provide key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and
sediment
Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...
s from the rivers. Most famously, the bay is a key link in the
Pacific Flyway
The Pacific Flyway is a major north-south flyway for migratory birds in the Americas, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. Every year, migratory birds travel some or all of this distance both in spring and in fall, following food sources, heading ...
and with millions of
shorebirds
245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots
Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...
annually visiting the bay shallows as a refuge, is the most important component of the flyway south of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. Many
endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
of birds are also found here: the
California least tern
The California least tern, ''Sternula antillarum browni'', is a subspecies of least tern that breeds primarily in bays of the Pacific Ocean within a very limited range of Southern California, in San Francisco Bay and in northern regions of Mexico ...
, the
California clapper rail
Ridgway's rail (''Rallus obsoletus'') is a near-threatened species of bird. It is found principally in California's San Francisco Bay to southern Baja California. A member of the rail family, Rallidae, it is a chicken-sized bird that rarely flie ...
, the
snowy egret
The snowy egret (''Egretta thula'') is a small white heron. The genus name comes from Provençal French for the little egret, , which is a diminutive of , 'heron'. The species name ''thula'' is the Araucano term for the black-necked swan, app ...
, and the
black crowned night heron
The black-crowned night heron (''Nycticorax nycticorax''), or black-capped night heron, commonly shortened to just night heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and ...
.
There is also a significant diversity of
salmonids
Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish that constitutes the only currently extant family in the order Salmoniformes . It includes salmon (both Atlantic and Pacific species), trout (both ocean-going and landlocked), chars, freshwater whitefi ...
present in the bay.
Steelhead
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...
populations in California have dramatically declined due to human and natural causes; in the Bay Area, all naturally spawned
anadromous
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...
steelhead populations below natural and manmade impassable barriers in California streams from the
Russian River to Aptos Creek, and the drainages of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, Federal Endangered Species Act. The Central California Coast coho salmon population is the most endangered of the many troubled salmon populations on the West Coast of the United States, west coast of the United States, including populations residing in tributaries to the San Francisco Bay.
California Coast Chinook salmon were historically native to the Guadalupe River (California), Guadalupe River in San Francisco Bay, and Chinook salmon runs persist today in the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County), Coyote Creek, Napa River, and Walnut Creek (California), Walnut Creek. Industrial, mining, and other uses of mercury (element), mercury have resulted in a widespread distribution of that poisonous metal in the bay, with uptake in the bay's phytoplankton and contamination of its game fish, sportfish.
Aquatic mammals are also present in the bay. Before 1825, Spanish, French, English, Russians and Americans were drawn to the Bay Area to harvest prodigious quantities of North American beaver, beaver, North American river otter, river otter, marten, fisher, mink, fox, weasel, harbor and fur seals and sea otter. This early fur trade, known as the California Fur Rush, was more than any other single factor, responsible for opening up the West and the San Francisco Bay Area, in particular, to world trade.
By 1817 sea otter in the area were practically eliminated. Since then, the North American beaver, California golden beaver re-established a presence in Alhambra Creek, followed by the Napa River and Sonoma Creek in the north Bay, and the Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek in the south Bay. The North American river otter which was first reported in Redwood Creek (Marin County), Redwood Creek at Muir Beach, California, Muir Beach in 1996, has since been spotted in the North Bay's Corte Madera Creek (Marin County, California), Corte Madera Creek, the South Bay's Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County), Coyote Creek, as well as in 2010 in San Francisco Bay itself at the Richmond, California, Richmond Marina. Other mammals include the internationally famous sea lions who began inhabiting San Francisco's Pier 39 after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the locally famous Humphrey the Whale, a humpback whale who entered San Francisco Bay twice on errant migrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bottlenose dolphins and Harbour porpoise, harbor porpoises have recently returned to the bay, having been absent for many decades. Historically, this was the northern extent of their warm-water species range.
Birds
![Burrowing Owl Family in Antioch](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Burrowing_Owl_Family_in_Antioch.jpg)
In addition to the many species of marine birds that can be seen in the Bay Area, many other species of birds make the Bay Area their home, making the region a popular destination for birdwatching. Many birds, including many described in the following paragraphs, are listed as
endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
despite once being common in the region, due to human and other factors.
Burrowing owl, Western burrowing owls were originally listed as a California species of special concern, species of special concern by the California Department of Fish and Game in 1979. California's population declined 60% from the 1980s to the early 1990s, and continues to decline at roughly 8% per year. A 1992–93 survey reported little to no breeding burrowing owls in most of the western counties in the Bay Area, leaving only
Alameda
An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to:
Places Canada
*Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan
**Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan
Chile
...
, Contra Costa County, Contra Costa, and Solano County, Solano counties as remnants of a once large breeding range. Bald eagles were once common in the Bay Area, but habitat destruction and thinning of eggs from DDT poisoning reduced the California state population to 35 nesting pairs. Bald eagles disappeared from the Bay Area in 1915, and only began returning in recent years.
In the 1980s an effort to re-introduce the species to the area began with the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group and the San Francisco Zoo importing birds and eggs from Vancouver Island and northeastern California, and there are now nineteen nesting couples in eight of the Bay Area's nine counties.
Other once absent species that have returned to the Bay Area include Swainson’s hawk, white tailed kite, and the osprey.
In 1927, zoologist Joseph Grinnell wrote that osprey were only rare visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area, although he noted records of one or two used nests in the broken tops of coast redwood, redwood trees along the
Russian River. In 1989, the southern breeding range of the osprey in the Bay Area was Kent Lake, although osprey were noted to be extending their range further south in the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada. In 2014, a Bay Area-wide survey found osprey had extended their breeding range southward with nesting sites as far south as Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco, Hunters Point in San Francisco on the west side and Hayward, California, Hayward on the east side, while further studies have found nesting sites as far south as the Los Gatos Creek (Santa Clara County, California), Los Gatos Creek watershed, indicating that the nesting range now includes the entire length of San Francisco Bay.
Most nests were built on man-made structures close to areas of human disturbance, likely due to lack of mature trees near the Bay. The wild turkey population was introduced in the 1960s by state game officials, and by 2015 have become a common sight in East Bay communities.
Geology and landforms
![Bay Area by Sentinel-2, 2019-03-11 (small version)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Bay_Area_by_Sentinel-2%2C_2019-03-11_%28small_version%29.jpg)
The Bay Area is well known for the complexity of its landforms that are the result of the forces of plate tectonics acting over of millions of years, since the region is located in the middle of a meeting point between two plates. Nine out of eleven distinct ''assemblages'' have been identified in a single county, Alameda. Diverse assemblages adjoin in complex arrangements due to offsets along the many faults (both active and stable) in the area. As a consequence, many types of rock and soil are found in the region. The oldest rocks are metamorphic rocks that are associated with granite in the Salinian Block west of the San Andreas fault. These were formed from sedimentary rocks of sandstone, limestone, and shale in uplifted seabeds. Volcanic deposits also exist in the Bay Area, left behind by the movement of the San Andreas fault, whose movement sliced a subduction plate and allowed magma to briefly flow to the surface.
![Eq-prob](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Eq-prob.jpg)
The region has considerable vertical relief in its landscapes that are not in the alluvial plains leading to the bay or in inland valleys. The topography, and geologic history, of the Bay Area can largely be attributed to the compressive forces between the Pacific Plate and the North American plate. The three major ridge structures in the Bay Area, part of the Pacific Coast Range, are all roughly parallel to the major Fault (geology), faults. The
Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...
along the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Hills in Marin County follow the San Andreas Fault, San Andreas fault, The
Berkeley Hills
The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de la C ...
, San Leandro Hills and their southern ridgeline extension through Mission Peak roughly follow the Hayward Fault, Hayward fault, and the Diablo Range, which includes Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton (California), Mount Hamilton and runs along the Calaveras Fault, Calaveras fault.
In total, the Bay Area is traversed by seven major earthquake fault, fault systems with hundreds of related faults, all of which are stressed by the relative motion between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate or by compressive stresses between these plates. The fault systems include the Hayward Fault Zone, Concord Fault, Concord-Green Valley Fault, Calaveras Fault, Clayton-Marsh Creek-Greenville Fault, Rodgers Creek Fault, and the San Gregorio Fault. Significant blind thrust faults (faults with near vertical motion and no surface ruptures) are associated with portions of the
Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...
and the northern reaches of the Diablo Range and Mount Diablo. These "hidden" faults, which are not as well known, pose a significant earthquake hazard. Among the more well-understood faults, as of 2014, scientists estimate a 72% probability of a earthquake magnitude, magnitude 6.7 earthquake occurring along either the Hayward, Rogers Creek, or San Andreas fault, with an earthquake more likely to occur in the East Bay's Hayward Fault. Two of the largest earthquakes in recent history were the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Hydrography
![Sf Estuary Historical](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Sf_Estuary_Historical.gif)
The Bay Area is home to a complex network of watersheds, marshes, rivers, creeks, reservoirs, and bays that predominantly drain into the
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
and Pacific Ocean. The largest bodies of water in the Bay Area are the
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
San Pablo, and
Suisun estuaries. Major rivers of the
North Bay include the Napa River, the Petaluma River, the Gualala River, and the
Russian River; the former two drain into San Pablo Bay, the latter two into the Pacific Ocean. In the
South Bay, the Guadalupe River (California), Guadalupe River drains into
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
near Alviso, San Jose, California, Alviso. There are also several lakes present in the Bay Area, including man-made lakes like Lake Berryessa and natural albeit heavily modified lakes like Lake Merritt.
![NOAA Bathymetry Image of San Francisco Bay Area (2020)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/NOAA_Bathymetry_Image_of_San_Francisco_Bay_Area_%282020%29.png)
Prior to the introduction of European agricultural methods, the shores of San Francisco Bay consisted mostly of tidal marshes.
Today, the bay has been significantly altered heavily re-engineered to accommodate the needs of water delivery, shipping, agriculture, and urban development, with side effects including the loss of wetlands and the introduction of contaminants and invasive species. Approximately 85% of those marshes have been lost or destroyed, but about 50 marshes and marsh fragments remain.
Huge tracts of the marshes were originally destroyed by farmers for agricultural purposes, then repurposed to serve as salt evaporation ponds to produce salt for food and other purposes. Today, regulations limit the destruction of tidal marshes, and large portions are currently being rehabilitated to their natural state.
Demographics
![Bay-area-race-and-origins](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Bay-area-race-and-origins.png)
According to the 2010 United States Census, the population of the nine-county Bay Area was 7.15 million, with 49.6% male and 50.4% female.
Of these, approximately 2.3 million (32%) are foreign born. In 2010 the racial makeup of the nine-county Bay Area was 52.5% White Americans, White (42.4% were non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic and 10.1% were White Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic), 23.3%
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 6.7% non-Hispanic Black or
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
, 0.7% Native Americans in the United States, Native American or Alaska Natives, Alaska Native, 0.6%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
, 5.4% from Multiracial Americans, two or more races and 10.8% from other races.
Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic or Latino residents of any race formed 23.5% of the population.
The Bay Area cities of
Vallejo, Suisun City, California, Suisun City,
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
, San Leandro, California, San Leandro, Fairfield, California, Fairfield, and Richmond, California, Richmond are among the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States.
Non-Hispanic whites form majorities of the population in
Marin
Marin (French) or Marín (Spanish "sailor") may refer to:
People
* Marin (name), including a list of persons with the given name or surname
* MaRin, in-game name of professional South Korean ''League of Legends'' player Jang Gyeong-hwan (born 19 ...
,
Napa, and Sonoma County, California, Sonoma counties.
Whites also make up the majority in the eastern regions of the
East Bay
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...
centered around the Lamorinda and
Tri-Valley
The Tri-Valley area is grouping of three valleys in the East Bay (California), East Bay region of California's San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area. The three valleys are Amador Valley, San Ramon Valley, and Livermore Valley. The Tri-Valley encompass ...
areas.
San Francisco's North Beach, San Francisco, North Beach district is considered the Little Italy of the city, and was once home to a significant Italian-American community. San Francisco, Marin County
and the Lamorinda area all have substantial American Jews, Jewish communities.
The Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latino population is spread throughout the Bay Area, but among the nine counties, the greatest number live in Santa Clara County, while Contra Costa County sees the highest growth rate. The largest Hispanic or Latino groups were those of Mexican Americans, Mexican (17.9%), Salvadoran Americans, Salvadoran (1.3%), Guatemalan Americans, Guatemalan (0.6%), Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican (0.6%) and Nicaraguan Americans, Nicaraguans (0.5%) ancestry. Mexican Americans make up the largest share of Hispanic residents in Napa county, while Central Americans make up the largest share in San Francisco, many of whom live in the Mission District, San Francisco, Mission District which is home to many residents of Salvadoran American, Salvadoran and Guatemalan American, Guatemalan descent.
The Asian Americans, Asian-American population in the Bay Area is one of the largest in the United States. Asian Americans, Asian-Americans make up the plurality in two major counties in the Bay Area: Santa Clara County, California, Santa Clara County and Alameda County, California, Alameda County. The largest Asian-American groups were those of Chinese Americans, Chinese (7.9%), Filipino Americans, Filipino (5.1%), Indian Americans, Indian (3.3%), Vietnamese Americans, Vietnamese (2.5%), and Japanese Americans, Japanese (0.9%) heritage.
Daly City
Daly City () is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, with population of 104,901 according to the 2020 census. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its ...
has the highest proportion of Asian-American residents (58.4%) in a large U.S. city outside of Hawaii. Asian Americans also constitute a majority in Cupertino, California, Cupertino, Fremont, California, Fremont, Milpitas, California, Milpitas, Union City, California, Union City and significant populations in Dublin, California, Dublin, Foster City, California, Foster City, Hercules, California, Hercules, Millbrae, California, Millbrae, San Ramon, California, San Ramon, Saratoga, California, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, California, Sunnyvale and
Santa Clara. The cities of San Jose and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
had the third and fourth most Asian-American residents in the United States. In San Francisco, Chinese Americans constitute 21.4% of the population and constitute the single largest ethnic group in the city. The Bay Area is home to over 382,950 Filipino Americans, one of the largest communities of Filipino people outside of the Philippines with the largest proportion of Filipino Americans concentrating themselves within American Canyon,
Daly City
Daly City () is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, with population of 104,901 according to the 2020 census. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its ...
, Fairfield, California, Fairfield, Hercules, California, Hercules, South San Francisco, California, South San Francisco, Union City, California, Union City and
Vallejo. Santa Clara county, and increasingly the East Bay, house a significant Indian American community. There are more than 100,000 people of Vietnamese Americans, Vietnamese ancestry residing within
San Jose city limits, the largest Vietnamese population of any city in the world outside of Vietnam. In addition, there is a sizable community of Korean Americans in Santa Clara county, where San Jose is located. East Bay cities such as Richmond, California, Richmond and Oakland, and the North Bay city of
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
*Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* Sa ...
, have plentiful populations of Laotian Americans, Laotian and Cambodian Americans, Cambodians in certain neighborhoods.
Pacific Islander American, Pacific Islanders such as Samoan Americans, Samoans and Tongan Americans, Tongans have the largest presence in East Palo Alto, California, East Palo Alto, where they constitute over 7% of the population.
The African American, African-American population of San Francisco was formerly substantial, had a thriving jazz scene and was known as "Harlem of the West." While black residents formed one-seventh of the city's population in 1970, today they have mostly moved to parts of the East Bay and North Bay, including Antioch, California, Antioch,
Fairfield, California, Fairfield and out of the Bay Area entirely. The South Park neighborhood of
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
*Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* Sa ...
was once home to a primarily black community until the 1980s, when many Latino immigrants settled in the area.
Other cities with large numbers of African Americans include
Vallejo (28%), Richmond, California, Richmond (26%), East Palo Alto (17%)
and the Census-designated place, CDP of Marin City (38%).
Since the economy of the Bay Area heavily relies on innovation and high-tech skills, a greater, educated population exists in the region. Roughly 87.4% of Bay Area residents have attained a high school degree or higher, while 46% of adults in the Bay Area have earned a post-secondary degree or higher.
[Scott, W. Richard, and Michael W. Krist. ''Higher Education and Silicon Valley: Connected but Conflicted''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.]
The Bay Area is the wealthiest region in the United States, due, primarily, to the economic power engines of
San Jose, San Francisco, and
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
. The Bay Area city of Pleasanton, California, Pleasanton has the second-highest household income in the country after New Canaan, Connecticut. However, discretionary income is very comparable with the rest of the country, primarily because the higher cost of living offsets the increased income.
By 2014, the Bay Area's wealth gap was considerable: the top ten percent of income-earners took home over eleven times as much as the bottom ten percent,
and a Brookings Institution study found the San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, San Francisco metro area, which excludes four Bay Area counties, to be the third most unequal Metropolitan Statistical Area, urban area in the country. Among the wealthy, forty-seven Bay Area residents made the Forbes magazine's 400 richest Americans list, published in 2007. Thirteen lived in San Francisco proper, placing it seventh among cities in the world. Among the forty-seven were several well-known names such as Steve Jobs, George Lucas, and Charles R. Schwab, Charles Schwab. The wealthiest resident was Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation, Oracle, worth $25 billion. A study by Capgemini indicates that in 2009, 4.5 percent of all households within the San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose metropolitan areas held $1 million in investable assets, placing the region first in the United States, just ahead of the New York City metro region. On the other hand, low income residents in the Bay Area saw their incomes fall by nine percent since 2007, with the bottom ten percent earning just $20,000 on average.
Crime
Statistics regarding crime rates in the Bay Area generally fall into two categories: violent crime and property crime. Historically, violent crime has been concentrated in a few cities in the East Bay, namely
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
, Richmond, California, Richmond, and Antioch, California, Antioch, but also East Palo Alto, California, East Palo Alto in the Peninsula,
Vallejo in the North Bay, and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
Nationally, Oakland's murder rate ranked 18th among cities with over 100,000 residents, and third for violent crimes per capita.
According to a 2015 Federal Bureau of Investigation report, Oakland was also the source of the most violent crime in the Bay Area, with 16.9 reported incidents per thousand people. Vallejo came in second, at 8.7 incidents per thousand people, while San Pablo, Antioch, and San Francisco rounded out the top five. East Palo Alto, which used to have the Bay Area's highest murder rate, saw violent crime incidents drop 65% between 2013 and 2014, while Oakland saw violent crime incidents drop 15%.
Meanwhile,
San Jose, which was one of the safest large cities in the United States in the early 2000s, has seen its violent crime rates trend upwards. Cities with the lowest rate of violent crime include the Peninsula cities of
Los Altos and Foster City, California, Foster City, East Bay cities of San Ramon, California, San Ramon and Danville, California, Danville, and South Bay cities of Saratoga, California, Saratoga and Cupertino, California, Cupertino. In 2015, 45 Bay Area cities counted zero homicides, the largest of which was
Daly City
Daly City () is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, with population of 104,901 according to the 2020 census. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its ...
.
In 2015, Oakland also saw the highest rates of property crime in the Bay Area, at 59.4 incidents per thousand residents, with San Francisco following close behind at 53 incidents per thousand residents. The East Bay cities Pleasant Hill, California, Pleasant Hill,
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
, and San Leandro, California, San Leandro rounded out the top five. The South Bay city of Saratoga, California, Saratoga and the North Bay city of Windsor, California, Windsor saw the least rates of property crime.
Additionally, San Francisco saw the most reports of arson.
Several street gangs operate in the Bay Area, including the Sureños and Norteños in San Francisco's Mission District, San Francisco, Mission District. African-American street gangs familiar in other cities, including the Crips, have struggled to establish footholds in the city, although gangs with shotcallers in China, including Triad (organized crime), Triad groups such as the Wo Hop To, have been reported active. In 1977, an ongoing rivalry between two Chinese gangs led to a Golden Dragon massacre, shooting attack at the Golden Dragon restaurant in Chinatown, which left five people dead and eleven wounded. Five members of the Joe Boys gang were arrested and convicted of the crime. Oakland, which also sees organized gang violence, implemented Operation Ceasefire in 2012 in an effort to reduce the violence.
Economy
![Googleplex (4842867784)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Googleplex_%284842867784%29.jpg)
The three principal cities of the Bay Area represent different employment clusters and are dominated by different, but commingled, industries. San Francisco is home to the region's financial industry, tourism, and is host to numerous conventions. The East Bay, centered around Oakland, is home to heavy industry, metalworking, oil, and shipping, while San Jose is the heart of Silicon Valley where a major pole of economic activity around the high-tech, technology industry resides. Furthermore, the North Bay is a major player in the country's agriculture and wine industry.
In all, the Bay Area is home to the second highest concentration of
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
companies, second only to the New York metropolitan area, with thirty such companies based throughout the region. In 2019, the greater fourteen-county statistical area had a GDP of $1.086 trillion, the third-highest among combined statistical areas.
The smaller nine-county Bay Area had a GDP of $995 billion in the same year, which nonetheless would rank it fifth List of U.S. states by GDP, among U.S. states and 17th List of countries by GDP (nominal), among countries.
Several major corporations are headquartered in the Bay Area. Among the Fortune 500 companies located in the region include technology companies
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, Facebook, Apple Inc., Hewlett Packard, Intel, Adobe Inc., Applied Materials, eBay, Cisco Systems, NortonLifeLock, Symantec, Oracle Corporation, Oracle, Netflix, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Salesforce; energy companies Chevron Corporation, Chevron and PG&E; financial service companies Charles Schwab Corporation, Visa Inc., and Wells Fargo; apparel retailers Gap Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., and Ross Stores; aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin; local grocer Safeway Inc., Safeway; pharmaceutical company McKesson Corporation, McKesson; and biotechnology companies Genentech and Gilead Sciences. The largest manufacturers include Tesla Inc., Lam Research, Bayer, Chevron Corporation, Chevron, and Coca-Cola. The Port of Oakland is the fifth-largest container terminal, container shipping port in the United States, and Oakland is also a major rail terminus.
In research, NASA's NASA Ames Research Center, Ames Research Center and the federal research facility Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are based in
Mountain View and Livermore, California, Livermore respectively. In the North Bay, Napa and Sonoma counties are known for their famous wineries, including Fantesca Estate & Winery, Domaine Chandon California, and D'Agostini Winery.
Despite the San Francisco Bay Area's booming industries contributing to the aforementioned economic growth, there is a significant level of poverty in the region. Rising housing prices and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area are often framed as symptomatic of high-income tech workers moving in to previously low-income, underserved neighborhoods. As of June 2014, median rent in San Francisco increased to $2,300, a 21% in one year.
In Oakland, median rent increased by one-third between 2011 and 2013. Two notable policy strategies to prevent eviction due to rising rents include rent control and subsidies such as Section 8 (housing), Section 8 and Shelter Plus Care.
Moreover, in 2002, then San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom introduced the "Care Not Cash" initiative, diverting funds away from cash handouts (which he argued encouraged drug use) to housing. This proved controversial, with some suggesting his rhetoric criminalized poverty, while others supporting the prioritizing of housing as a solution. To this day, the effectiveness of Care Not Cash continues to be debated.
Contrary to historical patterns of low incomes within the inner city, poverty rates in the Bay Area are shifting such that they are increasing more rapidly in suburban areas than in urban areas.
It is not yet clear whether the suburbanization of poverty is due to the relocation of poor populations or shifting income levels in the respective regions. However, the mid-2000s housing boom encouraged city dwellers to move into the newly cheap houses in suburbs outside of the city, and these suburban housing developments were then most affected by the 2008 housing bubble burst. As such, people in poverty experience decreased access to transportation due to underdeveloped public transport infrastructure in suburban areas. Suburban poverty is most prevalent among Hispanics and Blacks, and affects native-born people more significantly than foreign-born.
As greater proportions of incomes are spent on rent, many impoverished populations in the San Francisco Bay Area also face food insecurity and health setbacks.
Housing
The Bay Area is the most expensive place to live in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units,
has resulted in an California housing shortage, extreme housing shortage. For example, from 2012 to 2017, the San Francisco metropolitan area added 400,000 new jobs, but only 60,000 new housing units.
As of 2016, the entire Bay Area had 3.6 M jobs, and 2.6 M housing units, for a ratio of 1.4 jobs per housing unit,
significantly above the ratio for the US as a whole, which stands at 1.1 jobs per housing unit. (152M jobs, 136M housing units
) According to a survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau, the Bay Area ranks #1 "in median home value, median monthly costs for homes with a mortgage, and median gross rent."
[''Bay Area burden. [electronic resource] : examining the costs and impacts of housing and transportation on Bay Area residents, their neighborhoods and the environment''. (2009). Washington, DC : Urban Land Institute, c2009.] As of 2017, the average income needed in order to purchase a house in the region was $179,390, while the median price for a house was $895,000 and the average cost of a home in the Bay Area being $440,000 - more than twice the national average, while the average monthly rent is $1,240 - 50 percent more than the national average.
[Alamo, C., Uhler, B., & O'Malley, M. (2015). ''California's high housing costs : causes and consequences''. Sacramento, CA : Legislative Analyst's Office, March 17, 2015.] In 2018, a Bay Area household income of $117,000 was classified as "low income" by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
![San Francisco in 2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/San_Francisco_in_2018.jpg)
With high costs of living, many Bay Area residents allocate large amounts of their income towards housing. 20 percent of Bay Area homeowners spend more than half their income on housing, while roughly 25 percent of renters in the Bay Area spend more than half of their incomes on rent.
[''Bay Area Burden. [Electronic Resource] : Examining the Costs and Impacts of Housing and Transportation on Bay Area Residents, Their Neighborhoods and the Environment''. Washington, DC : Urban Land Institute, c2009., 2009. EBSCO''host''] Expending an average of more than $28,000 per year on housing in addition to roughly $13,400 on transportation, Bay Area residents spend around $41,420 per year to live in the region. This combined total of housing and transportation signifies 59 percent of the Bay Area's median household income, conveying the extreme costs of living.
The high rate of Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area, homelessness in the Bay Area can be attributed to the high cost of living.
[Quigley, J. M., Raphael, S., & Smolensky, E. (2001). ''Homelessness in California''. San Francisco, Calif. : Public Policy Institute of California, 2001.] No approximate number of homeless people living in the Bay Area can be determined due to the difficulty of tracking homeless residents.
However, according to San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, the number of homeless people in San Francisco alone is 9,975.
[Suzuki, L. (June 28, 2016). How Many People Live on Our Streets? ''San Francisco Chronicle''. Retrieved from projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/numbers/.] Additionally, San Francisco was revealed to have the most unsheltered homeless people in the country.
Because of the high cost of housing, many workers in the Bay Area live far from their place of employment, contributing to one of the highest percentages of extreme commuting, extreme commuters in the United States, or commutes that take over ninety minutes in one direction. For example, about 50,000 people commute from neighboring San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin county into the nine-county Bay Area daily, and more extremely, some workers commute semimonthly by flying.
Education
Colleges and universities
![UCBerkeleyCampus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/UCBerkeleyCampus.jpg)
The Bay Area is home to a large number of colleges and universities. The three most notable universities are
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
,
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, and University of California, San Francisco, all considered among the most prestigious universities in the world. The first institution of higher education in the Bay Area, Santa Clara University, was founded by Jesuits in 1851, who also founded the University of San Francisco in 1855. San Jose State University was founded in 1857 and is the oldest public college on the West Coast of the United States. According to the Brookings Institution, 45% of residents of the two-county San Jose metro area have a college degree and 43% of residents in the five-county San Francisco metro area have a college degree, the second and fourth highest ranked metro areas in the country for higher educational attainment.
Rankings compiled by ''U.S. News & World Report'' feature several Bay Area universities in prominent spots.
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
is the highest ranked university in the Bay Area, and seventh overall in the United States. The
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
is ranked twentieth overall, but for the past nineteen years has been highest-ranked public university in the country. Additionally, San Jose State University and Sonoma State University were respectively ranked sixth and tenth among public colleges in the West Coast.
The city of San Francisco is host to two additional University of California schools, neither of which confer undergraduate degrees. The University of California, San Francisco is 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 is the highest-ranked hospital in California. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, founded in Civic Center, San Francisco, Civic Center in 1878, is the oldest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution. The city is also host to a California State University school, San Francisco State University.
Additional campuses of the California State University system in the Bay Area are California State University, East Bay, Cal State East Bay in Hayward, California, Hayward and California State University Maritime Academy, Cal Maritime in
Vallejo.
California Community Colleges System also operates a number of community colleges in the Bay Area. According to CNNMoney, the Bay Area community college with the highest "success" rate is De Anza College in Cupertino, California, Cupertino, which is also the tenth-highest ranked in the nation. Other relatively well-ranked Bay Area community colleges include Foothill College, City College of San Francisco, West Valley College, Diablo Valley College, and Las Positas College.
Many scholars have pointed out the overlap of education and the economy within the Bay Area. According to multiple reports, research universities such as Stanford University, University of California - Santa Cruz and University of California - Berkeley, are essential to the culture and economy in the area.
These universities also provide countless, public programs for people to learn and enhance skills relevant to the local economies. These opportunities not only provide educational services to the community, but also generate significant amounts of revenue.
Primary and secondary schools
Public primary and secondary education in the Bay Area is provided through school districts organized through three structures (elementary school districts, high school districts, or unified school districts) and are governed by an elected board. In addition, many Bay Area counties and the city of San Francisco operate "special service schools" that are geared towards providing education to students with handicaps or special needs.
An alternative public educational setting is offered by charter schools, which may be established with a renewable charter of up to five years by third parties. The mechanism for charter schools in the Bay Area is governed by the California Charter Schools Act of 1992.
According to rankings compiled by ''U.S. News & World Report'', the highest-ranked high school in California is the Pacific Collegiate School, located in Santa Cruz, California, Santa Cruz and part of the greater Bay Area. Within the traditional nine-county boundaries, the highest ranked high school is KIPP San Jose Collegiate in San Jose. Among the top twenty high schools in California include Lowell High School (San Francisco), Lowell High School in San Francisco, Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Lynbrook High School in San Jose, the University Preparatory Academy in San Jose, Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, California, Fremont, Oakland Charter High School in Oakland, Henry M. Gunn High School in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
, and Saratoga High School (California), Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California, Saratoga.
Transportation
![Bayarea rail transit 2021](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Bayarea_rail_transit_2021.png)
Transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area is reliant on a complex multimodal infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, highways, rail, tunnels, airports, ferries, and bike and pedestrian paths. The development, maintenance, and operation of these different modes of transportation are overseen by various agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission. These and other organizations collectively manage several interstate highways and State highways in California, state routes, two Rapid transit, subway networks, three commuter rail agencies, eight trans-bay bridges, transbay ferry service, local transit bus, bus service,
three international airports (San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, San Jose International Airport, San Jose, and Oakland International Airport, Oakland), and an extensive network of roads, tunnels, and paths such as the San Francisco Bay Trail.
The Bay Area hosts an extensive freeway and highway system that is particularly prone to traffic congestion, with one study by Inrix concluding that the Bay Area's traffic was the fourth worst in the world. There are some city streets in San Francisco where gaps occur in the freeway system, partly the result of the Highway revolts in the United States#San Francisco, Freeway Revolt, which prevented a freeway-only thoroughfare through San Francisco between the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, the western terminus of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80, and the southern terminus of the Golden Gate Bridge (U.S. Route 101 in California, U.S. Route 101). Additional damage that occurred in the wake of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake resulted in freeway segments being removed instead of being reinforced or rebuilt, leading to the revitalization of neighborhoods such as San Francisco's Embarcadero (San Francisco), Embarcadero and Hayes Valley. The greater Bay Area contains the three principal north–south highways in California: Interstate 5, U.S. Route 101, and California State Route 1. U.S. 101 and State Route 1 directly serve the traditional nine-county region, while Interstate 5 bypasses to the east in San Joaquin County to provide a more direct Los Angeles–
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
route. Additional local highways connect the various subregions of the Bay Area together.
There are over two dozen public transit agencies in the Bay Area with overlapping service areas that utilize different mode of transport, modes, with designated connection points between the various operators. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), a heavy rail/Rapid transit, metro system, operates in five counties and connects San Francisco and Oakland via the Transbay Tube. Other commuter rail systems link San Francisco with the Peninsula and San Jose (Caltrain), San Jose with the Tri-Valley Area and San Joaquin County (Altamont Corridor Express, ACE), and Sonoma with Marin County (Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit, SMART).
In addition, Amtrak provides frequent commuter service between San Jose and the East Bay with
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, and long-distance service to other parts of the United States. Muni Metro operates a hybrid streetcar/Rapid transit, subway system within the city of San Francisco, and Valley Transportation Authority, VTA operates a light rail system in Santa Clara County. These rail systems are supplemented by numerous bus agencies and transbay ferries such as Golden Gate Ferry and the San Francisco Bay Ferry. Most of these agencies accept the Clipper Card, a reloadable contactless smart card, as a universal electronic payment system.
Government and politics
![SFCityHall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/SFCityHall.png)
Government in the San Francisco Bay Area consists of multiple actors, including 101 city and nine county governments, a dozen regional agencies, and a large number of single-purpose Special district (United States), special districts such as municipal utility districts and transit districts. Incorporated cities are responsible for providing police service, zoning, issuing building permits, and maintaining public streets among other duties. County governments are responsible for elections and voter registration, vital records, property assessment and records, tax collection, public health, agricultural regulations, and building inspections, among other duties. Public education is provided by independent school districts, which may be organized as elementary districts, high school districts, unified school districts combining elementary and high school grades, or community college districts, and are managed by an elected school board.
A variety of special districts also exist and provide a single purpose, such as delivering public transit in the case of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, or monitoring air quality levels in the case of the
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) is a public agency that regulates the stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties of California's San Francisco Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San ...
.
Politics in the Bay Area is widely regarded as one of the most Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and in the United States. Since the late 1960s, the Bay Area has cemented its role as the most liberal region in California politics, giving greater support for the center-left Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party's candidates than any other region of the state, even as California trended towards the Democratic Party over time.
According to research by the Public Policy Institute of California, the Bay Area and the North Coast (California), North Coast counties of Humboldt County, California, Humboldt and
Mendocino were the most consistently and strongly liberal areas in California.
According to the California Secretary of State, the Democratic Party holds a voter registration advantage in every California's congressional districts, congressional district, California State Senate districts, State Senate district, California State Assembly districts, State Assembly district, State Board of Equalization (California)#Equalization districts, State Board of Equalization district, all nine counties, and all of the 101 incorporated municipalities in the Bay Area. On the other hand, the center-right Republican Party (United States), Republican Party holds a voter registration advantage in only one State Assembly sub-district (the portion of the California's 4th State Assembly district, 4th in Solano County, California, Solano County). According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI), congressional districts the Bay Area tends to favor Democratic candidates by roughly 40 to 50 percentage points, considerably above the mean for California and the nation overall.
In U.S. Presidential elections since 1960, the nine-county Bay Area voted for Republican Party (United States), Republican candidates only two times, in both cases voting for a Californian: in 1972 for Richard Nixon and again in 1980 for Ronald Reagan. The last county to vote for a Republican presidential candidate was Napa County, California, Napa county in 1988 for George H. W. Bush. Since then, all nine Bay Area counties have voted consistently for the Democratic candidate. Currently, both of California's U.S. Senators are Democrats, and all twelve List of United States congressional districts, U.S. congressional districts located wholly or partially in the Bay Area are represented by a Democratic representative. Additionally, every Bay Area member of the California State Senate and the California State Assembly is a registered Democrat.
The association between the Bay Area and progressive politics has led to the term "San Francisco values" being used by conservative commentators in a pejorative sense to describe the secular progressive culture in the area.
Culture
Arts
Art
![Pixaranimationstudios](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Pixaranimationstudios.jpg)
The Bay Area was a hub of the Abstract Expressionism movement of painting. It is associated with the works of Clyfford Still, who began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1946, leaving a lasting influence on the artistic styles of Bay Area painters up to the present day. A few years later, Abstract Expressionist painter David Park (painter), David Park painted ''Kids on Bikes'' in 1950, which retained many aspects of abstract expressionism but with original distinguishing features that would later lead to the Bay Area Figurative Movement. While both the Figurative Movement and the Abstract Expressionism movement arose from art schools, Funk art would later rise out of the region's underground and was characterized by informal sharing of technique among groups of friends and art showcases in "cooperative" galleries instead of formal museums. Later, the Bay Area art movement would be heavily influenced by the Counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture movement in the 1960s, and art produced during this time reflected the political environment.
The San Francisco Renaissance was an era of Poetry, poetic activity centered on San Francisco and poets such as Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. The movement, which often included visual and performing arts, was heavily influenced by cross-cultural interests, particularly Buddhism, Taoism, and a general interest in East Asian cultures.
The Bay Area is presently home to a thriving computer animation industry led by Pixar Animation Studios and Industrial Light & Magic. Pixar, based in Emeryville, California, Emeryville, produced the first fully Computer animation#Films, computer animated feature film, ''Toy Story'', with software it designed in-house and whose computer animation films have since garnered 26 Academy Awards and critical acclaim. Industrial Light & Magic, which is based in the Presidio, San Francisco, Presidio in San Francisco, was created in 1975 to help create visual effects for the ''Star Wars'' series has since been involved with creating visual effects for over three hundred Hollywood films.
Music
Throughout its recent history, the Bay Area has been home to several musical movements that left lasting influences on the genres they affected. San Francisco, in particular, was the center of the Counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture movement in the 1960s, which directly led to the rise of several notable musical acts: Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead, which formed in 1965, and Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin; all three would be closely associated with the 1967
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
.
[T. Gitlin, ''The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage'', (New York, 1993), p.215–217] Jimi Hendrix also had strong connections to the movement and the Bay Area, as he lived in Berkeley for a brief time as a child and played in many local venues in that decade.
By the 1970s, San Francisco had developed a vibrant jazz scene, earning the moniker, "Harlem of the West".
The Vietnam War was being fought at the time, and Bay Area bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival of El Cerrito, California, El Cerrito became known for their political and socially-conscious lyrics Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, against the conflict. Carlos Santana rose to fame in the early 1970s with his Santana band and would later be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two former members of Santana (band), Santana, Neal Schon and Gregg Rolie would later lead the formation of the band Journey (band), Journey.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the Bay Area Bay Area thrash metal, became home to one of the largest and most influential thrash metal scenes in the world, with contributions from 3 of the "Big Four" of thrash metal, namely Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth, and the emergence of the avant-garde metal with bands such as Giant Squid (band), Giant Squid, Grayceon, and Ludicra.
[; ] The post-grunge era in the 1990s featured prominent Bay Area bands Third Eye Blind of San Francisco, Counting Crows of Berkeley, and Smash Mouth of San Jose, and later Pop punk, pop punk rock bands like Green Day.
The 1990s also saw the emergence of the influential hyphy movement in hip hop, derived from the Oakland slang for "hyperactive", and pioneered by Bay Area rappers Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks, Mistah Fab, and E-40.
Other notable rappers from the Bay Area include Lil B,
Tupac Shakur, MC Hammer, Too $hort, and G-Eazy.
Today, much of the rap coming out of Oakland and the East Bay is "conscious rap", which concerns itself with social issues and awareness.
The Bay Area is also home to hundreds of classical music ensembles, from community choirs to professional orchestras, such as the San Francisco Symphony, California Symphony, Fremont Symphony Orchestra, Oakland Symphony and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra.
Theater
![BerkeleyRep](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/BerkeleyRep.jpg)
According to the regional theater service organization Theatre Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Area is the third largest center of activity for theatre company, theater companies and actors in the United States, after the New York City metropolitan area, New York City and Chicago metropolitan areas, with 400 companies spread throughout the region. The organization was founded in 1976 by the Magic Theatre and American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley. The latter two, along with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
-based Theatreworks (Silicon Valley), Theatreworks, have since gone on to win one Regional Theatre Tony Award each. Several famous actors have arisen from the Bay Area's theatre community, including Daveed Diggs from ''Hamilton (musical), Hamilton'' and Darren Criss from ''Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical), Hedwig'', ''A Very Potter Musical'', and ''Glee (TV series), Glee''. Locally, well-regarded actors include James Carpenter (actor), James Carpenter, a stage actor who has performed at the ACT, Berkeley Repertory, and San Jose Repertory Theatre among others, Rod Gnapp of the Magic Theatre Company, Sean San Jose, one of the founders of the Campo Santo theater, and Campo Santo member Margo Hall.
The Bay Area also has an active youth theater scene. ACT and the Berkeley Repertory both run classes and camps for young actors, as do the Peninsula Youth Theater and Willow Glen Children’s Theatre in the Peninsula and South Bay, Bay Area Children's Theater and Danville Children’s Musical Theater in the East Bay, and Marin Shakespeare in the North Bay, among many others.
Media
![Sutro Tower from Grandview](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Sutro_Tower_from_Grandview.jpg)
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest designated market area, television market and the fourth-largest designated market area, radio market in the U.S. The Bay Area's oldest radio station, KCBS (AM), began as an experimental station in San Jose in 1909, before the beginning of commercial broadcasting. KALW was the Bay Area's first FM broadcasting, FM radio station, and first radio station to begin commercial broadcasting west of the Mississippi River when it signed on the air in 1941. KPIX, which began broadcasting in 1948, was the first television station to air in the Bay Area and Northern California.
All major U.S. television networks have List of television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, affiliates serving the region, including KTVU 2 (FOX), KRON-TV 4 (Local News/MyNetworkTV, MyNetwork), KPIX 5 (CBS), KGO-TV 7 (ABC), KQED-TV 9 (PBS), KNTV 11 (NBC), KBCW (TV), KBCW 44/45 (CW), KQEH 54 (PBS), and KKPX 65 (Ion Television, Ion). Bloomberg West, a show that focuses on topics pertaining to technology and business, was launched in 2011 from a studio in and continues to broadcast from San Francisco.
Public broadcasting outlets include both a KQED-TV, television station and a KQED-FM, radio station, both broadcasting under the call letters KQED from a facility near the Potrero Hill, San Francisco, Potrero Hill neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country. Another local broadcaster, KPOO, is an independent, African-American owned and operated noncommercial radio station established in 1971.
The largest newspapers in the Bay Area are the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and ''San Jose Mercury News'', the highest and second-highest most widely circulated newspaper in
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
. ''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, under new ownership. Most of the Bay Area's local regions and municipalities also have their own newspapers, such as the ''East Bay Times'' and ''San Mateo Daily Journal''. The national newsmagazine ''Mother Jones (magazine), Mother Jones'' is also based in San Francisco. Non-English (language), English-language newspapers include several Chinese (language), Chinese-language papers such as ''Sing Tao Daily'', the largest in the Bay Area by circulation, and ''El Mundo'', a free Spanish (language), Spanish-language weekly distributed by the ''Mercury News''.
Sports and recreation
![AT&T Park July 24, 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/AT%26T_Park_July_24%2C_2016.jpg)
The Bay Area is home to six professional major league sports franchises: The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) in American football, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball (MLB), the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League (NHL), and the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer (MLS).
In American football, football, the San Francisco 49ers, 49ers play in Levi's Stadium and have won five Super Bowls (Super Bowl XVI, XVI, Super Bowl XIX, XIX, Super Bowl XXIII, XXIII, Super Bowl XXIV, XXIV, Super Bowl XXIX, XXIX) and lost two (XLVII and LIV).
In baseball, the San Francisco Giants, Giants, who play at Oracle Park, have won eight World Series titles, three since relocating to San Francisco (2010 World Series, 2010, 2012 World Series, 2012, and 2014 World Series, 2014) from New York City, New York in 1958.
The Oakland Athletics, Athletics, who play at the Oakland Coliseum,
have won nine World Series titles, four since relocating to Oakland (1972 World Series, 1972, 1973 World Series, 1973, 1974 World Series, 1974, and 1989 World Series, 1989) from Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City in 1968.
In basketball, the Golden State Warriors, Warriors play at the Chase Center and have won seven NBA Finals, five since relocating to the Bay Area (1975 NBA Finals, 1975, 2015 NBA Finals, 2015, 2017 NBA Finals, 2017, 2018 NBA Finals, 2018 and 2022 NBA Finals, 2022) from Philadelphia in 1962.
In ice hockey, hockey, the San Jose Sharks, Sharks play at the SAP Center. They made their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2016 Stanley Cup Finals, 2016 but have not won the Stanley Cup.
In Association football, soccer, the San Jose Earthquakes, Earthquakes play at PayPal Park and have won the MLS Cup twice in MLS Cup 2001, 2001 and MLS Cup 2003, 2003.
Outside of major league sports, the Bay Area is home to three minor league franchises. In hockey, the San Jose Barracuda play in the American Hockey League (AHL) and are the top affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, sharing the same rink at the SAP Center in San Jose. In baseball, the San Jose Giants in the California League of Minor League Baseball (MiLB) are the Low-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, playing out of the San Jose Municipal Stadium. In soccer, the Oakland Roots in the USL Championship, the second division of American soccer, currently play at Laney Field at Laney College.
In terms of collegiate sports, six Bay Area universities are members of National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA NCAA Division I, Division I, the highest level of college sports in the country. All three football-playing schools in the Bay Area are in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of NCAA college football. The California Golden Bears and Stanford Cardinal compete in the Pac-12 Conference, and the San Jose State Spartans compete in the Mountain West Conference. The Cardinal and Golden Bears are intense rivals, with their football teams competing annually in the Big Game (American football), Big Game for the Stanford Axe. One of the most famous games in the rivalry occurred in 1982, when the California Golden Bears football, Golden Bears defeated the Stanford Cardinal football, Cardinal on a last-second return kickoff known as "The Play (Stanford vs. California), The Play".
The Bay Area has an ideal climate for outdoor recreation, such that activities like hiking, cycling and jogging are popular among locals. There are more than of segregated cycle facilities, bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes just within San Francisco, and the Embarcadero (San Francisco), 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. San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the U.S.
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, Marina District. The St. Francis Yacht Club and Golden Gate Yacht Club are located in the Marina Harbor, while the South Beach Yacht Club is located next to Oracle Park. The Bay Area was host to the 2013 America's Cup. Other Bay Area yacht clubs include the Alameda Yacht Club, Berkeley Yacht Club, Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, Oakland Yacht Club, Presidio Yacht Club, Sausalito Yacht Club and Sequoia Yacht Club
in Redwood City.
See also
*List of metropolitan areas of the United States
*Coastal California
*Statistical area (United States)
*Lists of San Francisco Bay Area topics
*Timeline of the San Francisco Bay Area
*Sacramento metropolitan area
References
External links
Discover the Bay Area websiterun by Discover California
Bay Area Tourism Guideby the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
{{Coord, 37.81, N, 122.37, W, region:US-CA_dim:100km, display=title
San Francisco Bay Area,
Regions of California
Geography of Northern California
Metropolitan areas of California