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The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
that separates San Francisco Bay from the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. On its northern tip is the
City and County 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 ...
. Its southern base is Mountain View, south 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 es ...
and north of Sunnyvale and Los Altos. Most of the Peninsula is occupied by
San Mateo County San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City is the county seat, and the third most populated city following Daly ...
, between San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, and including the cities and towns of Atherton, Belmont,
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
, Burlingame, Colma,
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 ...
,
East Palo Alto East Palo Alto (abbreviated E.P.A.) is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of East Palo Alto was 30,034. It is situated on the San Francisco Peninsula, roughly halfway between the cities of ...
, El Granada,
Foster City Foster City is a city located in San Mateo County, California. The 2020 census put the population at 33,805, an increase of more than 10% over the 2010 census figure of 30,567. Foster City is sometimes considered to be part of Silicon Valley ...
, Hillsborough,
Half Moon Bay Half Moon Bay is a coastal city in San Mateo County, California, United States, approximately south of San Francisco. Its population was 11,795 as of the 2020 census. Immediately at the north of Half Moon Bay is Pillar Point Harbor and the un ...
,
La Honda La Honda (Spanish for "The Sling") is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 979 at the 2020 census. It is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains between the Santa Clara Valley an ...
, Loma Mar, Los Altos, Menlo Park,
Millbrae Millbrae is a city located in northern San Mateo County, California, United States. To its northeast is San Francisco International Airport, San Bruno is on its northwest, and Burlingame on its southeast. It is bordered by San Andreas Lake to ...
, Pacifica,
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 es ...
, Pescadero,
Portola Valley Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Val ...
,
Redwood City Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a po ...
,
San Bruno San Bruno (Spanish for " St. Bruno") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, incorporated in 1914. The population was 43,908 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is between South San Francisco and Millbrae, adjacent to ...
, San Carlos, San Mateo,
South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...
, and Woodside. Whereas the term ''peninsula'' in a geographical sense technically refers to the entire San Francisco Peninsula, in local jargon, "The Peninsula" does not include the city of San Francisco.


History

In 1795, Governor
Diego de Borica Diego de Borica (1742–1800) was a Basque colonial Governor of the Californias, from 1794 to 1800. Family Diego de Borica y Retegui was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz to a family connected to Father Fermín de Lasuén's. In 1780 Diego de Borica mar ...
gave
José Darío Argüello José Darío Argüello (1753–1828) was a Querétaro-born Californio politician, soldier, and ranchero. He served as interim Governor of Alta California and then a term as Governor of Baja California. Biography José Darío Argüello was born i ...
a Spanish land grant known as
Rancho de las Pulgas Rancho de las Pulgas was a 1795 Spanish land grant in present-day San Mateo County, California to José Darío Argüello. The literal translation is "Ranch of the Fleas", probably named after a village of the local Lamchin people. The grant wa ...
. This rancho was the largest grant on the peninsula consisting of . As a local geographic term, the area referred to as "the Peninsula" is distinct from that denoted by "the City", and refers to the portion south of San Francisco. The appellation may date to the period prior to 1856, when the City of San Francisco and the County of San Francisco were separate entities, the latter then coextensive with contemporary San Mateo County and San Francisco City-County. The City-County owns several disjunct properties along the whole of the Peninsula (mostly water pumping stations connected to the
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 ...
on which San Francisco has a permanent leasehold) – thus, most of the larger communities in San Mateo County are ''de facto'' suburbs of San Francisco, with the neighboring communities of Pacifica, Daly City, Broadmoor, Colma, South San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, San Bruno, and Brisbane being immediate suburbs. The remaining suburban area of the Peninsula is on the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, along San Francisco Bay; the west and south-central portions of the Peninsula are mostly rural, unincorporated, and unorganized areas. A substantial portion of
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 ...
is located on the peninsula. In Silicon Valley are the headquarters of some of the largest tech companies in the world, such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Apple. Since 2010,
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 ...
.


Geography and transportation

Along the center line of the Peninsula is the northern half of the Santa Cruz Mountains, formed by the action of
plate tectonics 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 ...
along the
San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizonta ...
. In the middle of the Peninsula along the fault is the
Crystal Springs Reservoir Crystal Springs Reservoir is a pair of artificial lakes located in the northern Santa Cruz Mountains of San Mateo County, California situated in the rift valley created by the San Andreas Fault just to the west of the cities of San Mateo and H ...
. Just north of the Crystal Springs reservoir is
San Andreas Lake San Andreas Lake is a reservoir adjacent to the San Francisco Peninsula cities of Millbrae and San Bruno in San Mateo County, California. It is situated directly on the San Andreas Fault, which is named after the valley it is in. History Afte ...
, after which the
geologic fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
was originally named. The east side of the peninsula is a densely populated and largely urban and suburban area that includes portions of Silicon Valley. It forms a commuter area between San Francisco to the north and San Jose to the south.


Roads

*
Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...
* Interstate 280 * Interstate 380 *
U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...
* State Route 1 * State Route 9 * State Route 35 * State Route 82 * State Route 84 * State Route 85 * State Route 92 * State Route 109 * State Route 114 * State Route 237 The bridges in the Peninsula include the Dumbarton Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, and the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. A number of major thoroughfares run north-south: El Camino Real ( SR 82) and
US 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Roa ...
on the east side along the bay, Interstate 280 down the center,
Skyline Boulevard A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city’s overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land. City skyline ...
( SR 35) along the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and SR 1 on the west along the Pacific, and SR 85 which forms the southern end of the Peninsula.


Transit

Caltrain Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as fa ...
is the primary passenger rail transit in the peninsula, serving much of the eastern urbanized areas of the peninsula between Mountain View (which also connects to
VTA light rail VTA Light Rail is a light rail system in San Jose and nearby cities in Santa Clara County, California. It is operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, or VTA, and consists of of network comprising three main lines on stand ...
) and San Francisco's 4th and King Street stationIn addition, the peninsula has access to
Bay Area Rapid Transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which uses ...
(BART) northward of
Millbrae Millbrae is a city located in northern San Mateo County, California, United States. To its northeast is San Francisco International Airport, San Bruno is on its northwest, and Burlingame on its southeast. It is bordered by San Andreas Lake to ...
, connecting San Mateo County and San Francisco to 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 counties ...
through a route over and under
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 ...
, Glen Park, San Francisco's Mission district, and through part of
Market Street subway The Market Street subway is a two-level subway tunnel that carries Muni Metro and BART trains under Market Street in San Francisco, California.SamTrans SamTrans (stylized as samTrans; officially the San Mateo County Transit District) is a public transport agency in and around San Mateo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It provides bus service throughout San Mateo County and into port ...
and the
SFMTA The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA or San Francisco MTA) is an agency created by consolidation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), and the Taxicab Commission. The agen ...
's Muni buses, predominantly serving San Mateo and San Francisco counties respectively. In addition, southward of Palo Alto, the
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a Special district (United States), special district responsible for public transit services, Congestion management agenc ...
operates buses to other parts of Santa Clara County. Most of the peninsula's bus transit to 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 counties ...
and North Bay flowing through San Francisco, as neither
AC Transit AC Transit (Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District) is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates "Transbay" ro ...
nor
Golden Gate Transit Golden Gate Transit (GGT) is a public transportation system serving the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States. It primarily serves Marin County, Sonoma County, and San Francisco, and also provides limited s ...
, the primary transit operators for the East and North Bay respectively, do not serve the peninsula south of San Francisco.


Airports

The peninsula's sole commercial airport is San Francisco International Airport, itself connected to US 101 and BART. Access to the two other major commercial airports within the Bay Area, Oakland and San Jose, requires usage of BART or the VTA.


Environmental features

The San Francisco Peninsula contains a variety of habitats including estuarine, marine,
oak woodland An oak woodland is a plant community with a tree canopy dominated by oaks (''Quercus spp.''). In terms of canopy closure, oak woodlands are intermediate between oak savanna, which is more open, and oak forest, which is more closed. Although the ...
, redwood forest, coastal scrub and oak
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland- grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
. There are numerous species of wildlife present, especially along the San Francisco Bay estuarine
shoreline A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...
, San Bruno Mountain,
Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is a marine reserve in California on the Pacific Ocean, located just north of Pillar Point Harbor and Mavericks in the San Mateo County community of Moss Beach. Moss Beach is located approximately south of San Francis ...
and the
forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
s on the
Montara Mountain Montara Mountain, positioned between the unincorporated community of Montara, California, to the southwest and the city of Pacifica, California, to the north, forms the northern spur of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a narrow mountain range running the ...
block. The county is home to several endangered species including the
San Francisco garter snake The San Francisco garter snake (''Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia'') is a slender multi-colored subspecies of the common garter snake. Designated as an endangered subspecies since the year 1967, it is endemic to San Mateo County and the extrem ...
, the
Mission blue butterfly The Mission blue (''Icaricia icarioides missionensis'') is a blue or lycaenid butterfly subspecies native to the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. The butterfly has been declared as endangered by the US federal government. It is a su ...
and the
San Bruno elfin butterfly The San Bruno elfin (''Callophrys mossii bayensis'') is a U.S. federally listed endangered subspecies that inhabits rocky outcrops and cliffs in coastal scrub on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is endemic to this habitat in California. Its patch ...
, all of which are endemic to
San Mateo County San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City is the county seat, and the third most populated city following Daly ...
. The
endangered 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 inva ...
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 fli ...
is also found on the shores of San Francisco Bay, in the cities of Belmont and San Mateo. A number of noteworthy parks and nature preserves are found on the San Francisco Peninsula, including: * Edgewood Park, San Mateo County *
Golden Gate National Recreation Area The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the United ...
- several units are located on the Peninsula *
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Formed in 1972 by voter initiative, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) is a non-enterprise special district in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has acquired and preserved a regional green belt of open space land and provides o ...
- several preserves * Shoreline Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara County


Notable structures

There are a number of well-known structures and complexes on the San Francisco Peninsula: *
Bay Meadows Bay Meadows was a horse racing track in San Mateo, California from 1934 until 2008, in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. History Built on the site of an old airfield, Bay Meadows Racecourse was the longest continually operating t ...
Racecourse, San Mateo (demolished in 2008) * Carolands Mansion, Hillsborough *
Cow Palace The Cow Palace (originally the California State Livestock Pavilion) is an indoor arena located in Daly City, California, situated on the city's northern border with neighboring San Francisco. Because the border passes through the property, a por ...
, Daly City *
Crocker Mansion The Crocker-McMillin Mansion (also known as the Crocker Mansion and Darlington) is a historic house in Mahwah, New Jersey. It was built between 1903 and 1907 on the Darling estate for businessman George Crocker. After Crocker died in 1909, the ...
, Hillsborough *
Crystal Springs Reservoir Crystal Springs Reservoir is a pair of artificial lakes located in the northern Santa Cruz Mountains of San Mateo County, California situated in the rift valley created by the San Andreas Fault just to the west of the cities of San Mateo and H ...
, west of Interstate 280 * CuriOdyssey museum, San Mateo *
Dakin Building The Dakin Building is an architectural award-winning class A office building on the San Francisco Bay in Brisbane, California. Serving as a corporate headquarters building for several companies of national prominence, it was built from the profit ...
, Brisbane *
Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc., (file no. 3835815) trade name, doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebo ...
, world headquarters, Menlo Park *
Filoli Filoli, also known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, is a country house set in of formal gardens surrounded by a estate, located in Woodside, California, about south of San Francisco, at the southern end of Crystal Springs Reservoir, on the eastern ...
mansion and gardens, Woodside *
Frenchman's Tower Frenchman's Tower is a two-story red brick structure located in Santa Clara County, California, that resembles a medieval fortification. Built in 1875, the structure was listed as a California Point of Historical Interest in 1969. The structure wa ...
, Palo Alto *
Google Inc. 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. I ...
, World Headquarters, Mountain View * "
The Flintstone House The Flintstone House is a free-form, single-family residence in Hillsborough, California overlooking and easily seen from the Doran Memorial Bridge carrying Interstate 280 (California), Interstate 280 over San Mateo Creek (San Francisco Bay Area), ...
", east side of Interstate 280
*
Notre Dame de Namur University Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU) is a private Catholic university in Belmont, California. It is the third oldest college in California and the first college in the state authorized to grant the baccalaureate degree to women. In 2021, the ...
, Belmont, with
Ralston Hall Ralston Hall Mansion located in Belmont, California, was the country house of William Chapman Ralston, a San Francisco businessman, a founder of the Bank of California, and a financier of the Comstock Lode. It is an opulent Italianate Villa, mo ...
* Oracle World Headquarters, Redwood Shores (aka the "Emerald City") *
Pulgas Water Temple The Pulgas Water Temple is a stone structure in Redwood City, California, United States, designed by architect William G. Merchant. It was erected by the San Francisco Water Department to commemorate the 1934 completion of the Hetch Hetchy Aque ...
, Woodside * San Francisco International Airport * Sanchez Adobe Park, Pacifica *
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 ...
campus, Palo Alto


See also

* *
List of peninsulas A peninsula ( la, paeninsula from ''paene'' "almost" and ''insula'' "island") is a piece of land that is bordered mostly by water but connected to mainland. The surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily name ...
*


References


External links

* {{Coord, 37, 35, 00, N, 122, 24, 04, W, source:GNIS_scale:500000, display=title Peninsulas of California Landforms of the San Francisco Bay Area Geography of San Francisco Geography of San Mateo County, California Geography of Santa Clara County, California Regions of California *