San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial,
financial
Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...
, and
cultural
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
center of
Northern California
Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
. With a population of 827,526 residents as of 2024,
San Francisco is the
fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
and the
17th-most populous in the United States. San Francisco has a land area of
at the upper end of the
San Francisco Peninsula and is the
fifth-most densely populated U.S. county. Among U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023.
San Francisco anchors the
13th-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger
San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest urban region in the U.S., had a 2023 estimated population of over nine million.
Prior to
European settlement, the modern city proper was inhabited by the
Yelamu. On June 29, 1776,
settlers from New Spain established the
Presidio of San Francisco at the
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...
, and the
Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, both named for
Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone ( 1181 – 3 October 1226), known as Francis of Assisi, was an Italians, Italian Mysticism, mystic, poet and Friar, Catholic friar who founded the religious order of the Franciscans. Inspired to lead a Chris ...
.
The
California gold rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) 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 from the rest of the U ...
of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the
West Coast at the time.
[ In 1856, San Francisco became a ]consolidated city-county
In local government in the United States, United States local government, a consolidated city-county (#Terminology, see below for alternative terms) is formed when one or more city, cities and their surrounding County (United States), county (Lis ...
. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, it was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama–Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, it was a major port of embarkation for naval service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, significant immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...
, liberalizing attitudes, the rise of the beatnik and hippie countercultures, the sexual revolution, opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1965 with demonstrations against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States in the war. Over the next several years, these demonstrations grew ...
, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism.
San Francisco and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
are a global center of economic activity and the arts and sciences, spurred by leading universities, high-tech, healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, and professional services sectors. , the metropolitan area, with 4.5 million residents, ranked 5th by GDP ($874 billion) and 2nd by GDP per capita ($131,082) across the OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...
countries. In 2023, San Francisco proper had a GDP of $263.1 billion and a GDP per capita of $325,000. The city is home to numerous companies—many in the technology sector—including Salesforce, Uber
Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...
, Airbnb, OpenAI, Levi's, Gap, Dropbox, and Lyft
Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering ride-hailing services, motorized scooters, and bicycle-sharing systems in the United States and Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand a ...
.
In 2022, San Francisco had more than 1.7 million international visitors and approximately 20 million domestic ones. It is known for its steep rolling hills
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, and is usually applied to peaks which are above elevation compared to the relative landmass, though not as prominent as mountains. Hills fall und ...
and eclectic mix of architecture across varied neighborhoods; its Chinatown and Mission districts; mild climate; and landmarks including 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 in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...
, cable cars, and Alcatraz. The city is home to educational and cultural institutions such as the University of California, San Francisco, the University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...
, San Francisco State University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Legion of Honor (museum), the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley, San Francisco, Hayes Valley ne ...
, the San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Fra ...
, the San Francisco Opera, the SFJAZZ Center, and the California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
. Two major league sports teams, the San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
and the Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Founded in 1946 i ...
, play their home games within San Francisco. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is one of the world's busiest airports, while a light rail and bus network, in tandem with the BART and Caltrain systems, connects nearly every part of San Francisco with the wider region.
Etymology
San Francisco, which is Spanish for "Saint Francis", takes its name from Mission San Francisco de Asís, which in turn was named after Saint Francis of Assisi. The mission received its name in 1776, when it was founded by the Spanish under the leadership of Padre Francisco Palóu. The city has officially been known as San Francisco since 1847, when Washington Allon Bartlett, then serving as the city's alcalde, renamed it from Yerba Buena (Spanish for "Good Herb"), which had been the name of the first civilian in San Francisco. Earlier in San Francisco's history, the uninhabited area on the northeastern side of San Francisco was called , after the herb that was growing abundantly there. The name Yerba Buena continues to be used in locations in the city, such as on Yerba Buena Island.
When using a nickname or abbreviation, local residents most commonly refer to San Francisco as "the City" or "SF." Although the nickname "Frisco" has a local pedigree dating at least to 1850 and has been used by some local residents in every generation since then, the uses of both "Frisco" and the historically more recent "San Fran" tend to elicit sharp divisions among residents.
The California Cantonese who came for the California Gold Rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) 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 from the rest of the U ...
named California and specifically San Francisco , , " Gold Mountain".
When gold was discovered in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, it was named "New Gold Mountain" (, ) and California and San Francisco as "Old Gold Mountain" (, ).
History
Indigenous history
The earliest archeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of San Francisco dates to 3000 BCE. The Yelamu group of the Ramaytush people resided in a few small villages when an overland Spanish exploration party arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
. The Ohlone name for San Francisco was ''Ahwaste'', meaning "place at the bay". The arrival of Spanish colonists, and the implementation of their Mission system, marked the beginning of the assimilation of the Ramaytush people, and the decline of their language and culture.
Spanish era (1769-1821)
The Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy (political entity), Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered ...
claimed San Francisco as part of Las Californias, a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Spanish first arrived in what is now San Francisco on November 2, 1769, when the Portolá expedition led by Don Gaspar de Portolá and Juan Crespí
Juan Crespí, OFM (Catalan language, Catalan: ''Joan Crespí''; 1 March 1721 – 1 January 1782) was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of The Californias, Las Californias.
Biography
A native of Majorca, Crespí entered the Franciscan ord ...
arrived at San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
. Having noted the strategic benefits of the area due to its large natural harbor, the Spanish dispatched Pedro Fages in 1770 to find a more direct route to the San Francisco Peninsula from Monterey, which would become part of the El Camino Real route. By 1774, Juan Bautista de Anza had arrived to the area to select the sites for a mission and presidio. The first European maritime presence in San Francisco Bay occurred on August 5, 1775, when the Spanish ship ''San Carlos'', commanded by Juan Manuel de Ayala, became the first ship to anchor in the bay.
Soon after, on March 28, 1776, Anza established the Presidio of San Francisco. On October 9, Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores, was founded by Padre Francisco Palóu. In 1794, the Presidio established the Castillo de San Joaquín, a fortification on the southern side of the Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...
, which later came to be known as Fort Point.
In 1804, the province of Alta California
Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva 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 was made a separat ...
was created, which included San Francisco. At its peak in 1810–1820, the average population at the Mission Dolores settlement was about 1,100 people.
Mexican era (1821-1848)
In 1821, the Californias were ceded to Mexico by Spain. The extensive California mission system gradually lost its influence during the period of Mexican rule, although it was not until 1833 that the missions would be secularized. Agricultural land became largely privatized as ranchos, as was occurring in other parts of California. Coastal trade increased, including a half-dozen barques from various Atlantic ports which regularly sailed in California waters.
With the enactment of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, the missions were made to divest themselves of their extensive landholdings and emancipate the indigenous people under their control. As part of the process of secularization, Governor José Figueroa opened up San Francisco to civilian settlement. Prior to secularization, the only settlements in San Francisco had been the military settlement at the Presidio and the religious settlement at Mission Dolores. In 1835, the Presidio garrison, commanded by Mariano Vallejo, relocated to the Presidio of Sonoma, which was regarded as needing a greater military presence due the proximity of the Russian settlement at Fort Ross. Only a small detachment remained at the Presidio of San Francisco. Mission Dolores sold most of its property in 1836, retaining only the church and related structures.
In 1833, Juana Briones de Miranda was granted a small rancho at El Polín Spring, near the Presidio, founding the first non-indigenous civilian household in San Francisco. In 1834, the ''pueblo'' of Yerba Buena was founded. Yerba Buena Cove
Yerba Buena Cove was a cove on San Francisco Bay where the Mexican town of Yerba Buena, California, Yerba Buena was located. It lay between Clarks Point (San Francisco), Clarks Point to the north (southeast of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, Teleg ...
(named after a native herb) was already a favored anchorage spot and the new settlement and trading post was founded by its shores. Yerba Buena was located in what is now the city's Chinatown and Financial District and was centered on a plaza that is now Portsmouth Square. A land survey of Yerba Buena was made by the Swiss immigrant Jean Jacques Vioget as prelude to the city plan.
Francisco de Haro became the first alcalde
''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...
of Yerba Buena. In 1835, the second alcalde, José Joaquín Estudillo, approved the first land grant in Yerba Buena: to William Richardson. Yerba Buena began to attract American and European settlers; an 1842 census listed 21 residents (11%) born in the United States or Europe, as well as one Filipino merchant.
Following the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma and the beginning of the U.S. Conquest of California, American forces from the '' USS Portsmouth'' under the command of John B. Montgomery captured Yerba Buena on July 9, 1846, with little resistance from the local Californio population, raising the American flag over Yerba Buena plaza (later renamed Portsmouth Square in commemoration of this event).
Following the capture, U.S. forces appointed both José de Jesús Noé and Washington Allon Bartlett to serve as co-alcalde
''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...
s (mayors), while the conquest continued on in the rest of California. On January 30, 1847, Mayor Bartlett ordained that the city should officially change its name from "Yerba Buena" to "San Francisco", as the former name was only locally recognized and the latter name was in use on international maps. There was also concern that a new town being planned by General Vallejo on the Carquinez Strait was to be called "Francisca", after the first name of his wife. After the name change to "San Francisco", the name of Vallejo's town was changed to Benicia, after his wife's middle name. Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Alta California
Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva 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 was made a separat ...
was ceded from Mexico to the United States.
Early American era (1848-1906)
Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco under American sovereignty was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. Situated at the tip of a windswept peninsula without water or firewood, San Francisco lacked most of the basic facilities for a 19th-century settlement. Its 1847 population was said to be 459.
The California gold rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) 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 from the rest of the U ...
brought a flood of treasure seekers. Prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of wealth was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons, and hotels; many were left to rot, and some were sunk to establish title to the underwater lot. By 1851, the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870, Yerba Buena Cove
Yerba Buena Cove was a cove on San Francisco Bay where the Mexican town of Yerba Buena, California, Yerba Buena was located. It lay between Clarks Point (San Francisco), Clarks Point to the north (southeast of Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, Teleg ...
had been filled to create new land. Buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings.
California was quickly granted statehood in 1850, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...
and a fort on Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island () is a small island about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco in San Francisco Bay, California, near the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Strait. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a Alcatraz Isla ...
to secure San Francisco Bay. San Francisco County was one of the state's 18 original counties established at California statehood in 1850. Until 1856, San Francisco's city limits extended west to Divisadero Street and Castro Street, and south to 20th Street. In 1856, the California state government divided the county. A straight line was then drawn across the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula just north of San Bruno Mountain. Everything south of the line became the new San Mateo County while everything north of the line became the new consolidated City and County of San Francisco.
The California gold rush triggered a wave of entrepreneurial activity as individuals sought to capitalize on the newfound wealth. The discovery of silver deposits, notably the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further fueled rapid population growth and economic expansion.
San Francisco, as the gateway to the goldfields, experienced a surge in population and commercial activity. However, the influx of fortune seekers also brought challenges. Lawlessness was rampant, and the Barbary Coast district became synonymous with vice, attracting criminals, prostitutes, and illicit activities, including but not limited to prostitution, bootlegging, and gambling. The rapidly growing population, with its lawlessness, gambling and other vices, and the fact that there were no churches to be found, prompted missionaries like William Taylor to come to San Francisco where he began preaching in the streets, using an upright barrel as his pulpit. Taylor garnered enough generous donations from successful gold miners to build a church.
One of the most influential figures of this era was William Chapman Ralston. A shrewd banker and investor, Ralston amassed considerable wealth and influence in San Francisco. He gained control over a significant portion of the Comstock Lode's gold and silver mines, establishing a virtual monopoly. Using his incredible clout, Ralston was able to generate millions of dollars for San Francisco during its heady boom years. He founded the Bank of California, the first bank in the Western United States, and built the opulent Palace Hotel, a symbol of San Francisco's newfound prosperity and the largest hotel in the country at the time. His financial empire, however, collapsed in 1875 as a result of the Panic of 1873, triggering a major economic crisis in San Francisco.
Development of the Port of San Francisco and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the eastern U.S. rail system via the newly completed Pacific Railroad (the construction of which the city only reluctantly helped support) helped make the Bay Area a center for trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli
Domenico "Domingo" Ghirardelli (; February 21, 1817 – January 17, 1894) was an Italian-born chocolatier who was the founder of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in San Francisco, California.
Biography
Early life
Domenico Ghirardelli was bor ...
began manufacturing chocolate. Chinese immigrants made the city a polyglot culture, drawn to "Old Gold Mountain", creating the city's Chinatown quarter. By 1880, Chinese made up 9.3% of the population.
The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By 1890, San Francisco's population approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest city in the United States at the time. Around 1901, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene. The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900–1904.
Modern American era (1906-1940)
At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that spread across the city and burned out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people died, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half of the city's population of 400,000 was left homeless. Refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
s settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Wi ...
. Jack London
John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...
is remembered for having famously eulogized the earthquake: "Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone."
Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy
The Bank of Italy (Italian language, Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', , informally referred to as ''Bankitalia'') is the National central bank (Eurosystem), national central bank for Italy within the Eurosystem. It was the Italian central bank from ...
, later to become Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in ...
, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The influential San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association or SPUR was founded in 1910 to address the quality of housing after the earthquake. The earthquake hastened development of western neighborhoods that survived the fire, including Pacific Heights, where many of the city's wealthy rebuilt their homes. In turn, the destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in the Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
During this period, San Francisco built some of its most important infrastructure. Civil Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy was hired by San Francisco Mayor James Rolph as chief engineer for the city in September 1912 to supervise the construction of the Twin Peaks Reservoir, the Stockton Street Tunnel, the Twin Peaks Tunnel, the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the Auxiliary Water Supply System, and new sewers. San Francisco's streetcar system was pushed to completion by O'Shaughnessy between 1915 and 1927. It was the O'Shaughnessy Dam, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct that would have the largest effect on San Francisco. An abundant water supply enabled San Francisco to develop into the city it has become today.
In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and 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 in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...
, completing them in 1936 and 1937, respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone, and Robert Franklin Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's fair
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...
, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939–40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.
Postmodern American era (1941-Present)
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the city-owned Sharp Park in Pacifica was used as an internment camp to detain Japanese Americans
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...
. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...
creating the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers.
Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...
s, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The onset of containerization
Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...
made San Francisco's small piers obsolete, and cargo activity moved to the larger Port of Oakland. The city began to lose industrial jobs and turned to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...
from Asia and Latin America. From 1950 to 1980, the city lost over 10 percent of its population.
Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture movement. Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love. In 1974, the Zebra murders left at least 16 people dead. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village
A gay village, also known as a gayborhood or gaybourhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Gay vil ...
, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978.
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in ...
, now based in Charlotte, North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
, was founded in San Francisco; the bank completed 555 California Street in 1969. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, igniting a wave of " Manhattanization" that lasted until the late 1980s, a period of extensive high-rise development downtown. The 1980s also saw a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people in the city, an issue that remains today, despite many attempts to address it.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz Cou ...
caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway, allowing the city to reclaim The Embarcadero as its historic downtown waterfront and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood.
The three recent decades have seen booms driven by the internet industry. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the San Francisco economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified. Demand for new housing and office space ignited a second wave of high-rise development, this time in the South of Market district. By 2000, the city's population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded and their employees were laid off. Yet high technology and entrepreneurship remain mainstays of the San Francisco economy. By the mid-2000s (decade), the social media boom had begun, with San Francisco becoming a popular location for tech offices and a common place to live for people employed in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
companies such as Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
and Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
.
The early 2020s saw a reduction of tech companies' presence in Downtown San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, increased popularity of working at home, and struggles with homelessness. Although some observers have raised the possibility that office vacancies and declining tax revenues could cause San Francisco to enter an economic doom loop, other sources have refuted this broad-based characterization of the city as a whole, asserting that the issues of concern are restricted primarily to the urban core of San Francisco.
The San Francisco Armory, Palace of Fine Arts, Haas–Lilienthal House, and 450 Sutter Street are among the dozens of historical landmarks in the city listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Geography
San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contig ...
, at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
within its boundaries. Several picturesque islands— Alcatraz, Treasure Island and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island, and small portions of Alameda Island, Red Rock Island, and Angel Island—are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands, offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square", a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly .
There are more than 50 hills within the city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Potrero Hill, and Russian Hill. Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks
''Twin Peaks'' is an American Surrealist cinema, surrealist Mystery film, mystery-Horror film, horror Drama (film and television), drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It Pilot (Twin Peaks), premiered on American Broad ...
, a pair of hills forming one of the city's highest points, forms an overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is high and is capped with a tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower reaching 1,811 ft (552 m) above sea level.
The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city constructed an auxiliary water supply system and has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage. USGS has released the California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
earthquake forecast which models earthquake occurrence in California.
San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina, Mission Bay, and Hunters Point, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill
A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...
. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from the excavation of the Yerba Buena Tunnel through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes. The resulting soil liquefaction
Soil liquefaction occurs when a cohesionless saturated or partially saturated soil substantially loses Shear strength (soil), strength and stiffness in response to an applied Shear stress, stress such as shaking during an earthquake or other s ...
causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz Cou ...
. A few natural lakes and creeks ( Lake Merced, Mountain Lake, Pine Lake, Lobos Creek, El Polin Spring) are within parks and remain protected in what is essentially their original form, but most of the city's natural watercourses, such as Islais Creek and Mission Creek, have been partially or completely culvert
A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...
ed and built over. Since the 1990s, however, the Public Utilities Commission
A public utilities commission is a quasi-governmental body that provides oversight and/or regulation of public utility, public utilities in a particular area (locality, municipality, or Administrative division, subnational division), especially in ...
has been studying proposals to daylight or restore some creeks.
Neighborhoods
An ''Historical Center of San Francisco'' monument, where the 1899–1906 City Hall was once located, is in United Nations Plaza, at
The earliest center of San Francisco is Portsmouth Square, in the northeast quadrant of the city anchored by Market Street and the waterfront. Here in the northeast quadrant, the Financial District is centered, with Union Square, the principal shopping and hotel district, and the Tenderloin nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill, once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to the waterfront tourist attractions of Fisherman's Wharf, and Pier 39, where many restaurants feature Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street; North Beach, the city's Little Italy and the former center of the Beat Generation; and Telegraph Hill, which features Coit Tower. Abutting Russian Hill and North Beach is San Francisco's Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in North America.[Bacon, Daniel: Walking the Barbary Coast Trail 2nd ed., pp. 52–53, Quicksilver Press, 1997] The South of Market, which was once San Francisco's industrial core, has seen significant redevelopment following the construction of Oracle Park and an infusion of startup companies. New skyscrapers, live-work lofts, and condominiums dot the area. Further development is taking place just to the south in Mission Bay area, a former railroad yard, which now has a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco and Chase Center, which opened in 2019 as the new home of the Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Founded in 1946 i ...
.
West of downtown, across Van Ness Avenue, lies the large Western Addition neighborhood, which became established with a large African American population after World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The Western Addition is usually divided into smaller neighborhoods including Hayes Valley, the Fillmore, and Japantown, which was once the largest Japantown in North America but suffered when its Japanese American
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...
residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The Western Addition survived the 1906 earthquake with its Victorians largely intact, including the famous " Painted Ladies", standing alongside Alamo Square. To the south, near the geographic center of the city is Haight-Ashbury, famously associated with 1960s hippie culture.
North of the Western Addition is Pacific Heights, an affluent neighborhood that features the homes built by wealthy San Franciscans in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. Directly north of Pacific Heights facing the waterfront is the Marina, a neighborhood popular with young professionals that was largely built on reclaimed land from the Bay.
In the southeast quadrant of the city is the Mission District—populated in the 19th century by Californios
Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...
and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scandinavia. In the 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
began to predominate. In recent years, gentrification has changed the demographics of parts of the Mission from Latino, to twenty-something professionals. Noe Valley to the southwest and Bernal Heights to the south are both increasingly popular among young families with children. East of the Mission is the Potrero Hill neighborhood, a mostly residential neighborhood that features sweeping views of downtown San Francisco. West of the Mission, the area historically known as Eureka Valley, now popularly called the Castro, was once a working-class Scandinavian and Irish area. It has become North America's first gay village
A gay village, also known as a gayborhood or gaybourhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Gay vil ...
, and is now the center of gay life in the city. Located near the city's southern border, the Excelsior District is one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco. The Bayview-Hunters Point in the far southeast corner of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods, though the area has been the focus of several revitalizing and urban renewal
Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...
projects.
The West Side of the city remained largely undeveloped until the early 20th century, due to the region being isolated from downtown because of the rugged terrain of Twin Peaks, Mount Sutro and Mount Davidson. Vast sand dunes made up the costal plain with the uninhibited area being dubbed the Outside Lands
Outside Lands was the name used in the 19th century for the present-day Richmond District and Sunset District on the West Side of San Francisco. With few roads and no public transportation, the area was covered by sand dunes and was conside ...
. The creation of Golden Gate Park in 1870–1900 contributed to the area being developed. The construction of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1918 connected southwest neighborhoods to downtown via streetcar, hastening the development of West Portal, and nearby affluent Forest Hill and St. Francis Wood. Further west, stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean and north to Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
lies the vast Sunset District, a large middle-class area with a predominantly Asian population.
The northwestern quadrant of the city contains the Richmond, a mostly middle-class neighborhood north of Golden Gate Park, home to immigrants from other parts of Asia as well as many Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Together, these areas are known as The Avenues.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace.
Climate
San Francisco has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
: ''Csb'', Trewartha: Csll), characteristic of California's coast, with moist winters and dry summers. San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean on the west side of the city, and the water of San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
to the north and east. This moderates temperature swings and produces a remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation.
Among major U.S. cities, San Francisco has the coolest daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for June, July, and August. During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low-pressure area that draws winds from the North Pacific High through the Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...
, which creates the city's characteristic cool winds and fog. The fog is less pronounced in eastern neighborhoods and during the late summer and early fall. The year's warmest month, on average, is September, and on average, October is warmer than July, especially in daytime.
Temperatures reach or exceed on an average of only 21 and 23 days a year at downtown and San Francisco International Airport (SFO), respectively. The dry period of May to October is mild to warm, with the normal monthly mean temperature peaking in September at . The rainy period of November to April is slightly cooler, with the normal monthly mean temperature reaching its lowest in January at . On average, there are 73 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages . Variation in precipitation from year to year is high. Above-average rain years are often associated with warm El Niño
EL, El or el may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional entities
* El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit
* Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things''
* El, fami ...
conditions in the Pacific while dry years often occur in cold water La Niña periods. In 2013 (a "La Niña" year), a record low of rainfall was recorded at downtown San Francisco, where records have been kept since 1849. Snowfall in the city is very rare, with only 10 measurable accumulations recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976 when up to fell on Twin Peaks.
The highest recorded temperature at the official National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
downtown observation station was on September 1, 2017. During that hot spell, the warmest ever night of was also recorded. The lowest recorded temperature was on December 11, 1932.
During an average year between 1991 and 2020, San Francisco recorded a warmest night at and a coldest day at . The coldest daytime high since the station's opening in 1945 was recorded in December 1972 at .
As a coastal city, San Francisco will be heavily affected by climate change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
. , sea levels are projected to rise by as much as , resulting in periodic flooding, rising groundwater levels, and lowland floods from more severe storms.
San Francisco falls under the USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commerc ...
10b Plant hardiness zone, though some areas, particularly downtown, border zone 11a.
Ecology
Historically, tule elk were present in San Francisco County, based on archeological evidence of elk remains in at least five different Native American shellmounds: at Hunter's Point, Fort Mason, Stevenson Street, Market Street, and Yerba Buena. Perhaps the first historical observer record was from the De Anza Expedition on March 23, 1776. Herbert Eugene Bolton wrote about the expedition camp at Mountain Lake, near the southern end of today's Presidio: "Round about were grazing deer, and scattered here and there were the antlers of large elk."
Demographics
The 2020 United States census showed San Francisco's population to be 873,965, an increase of 8.5% from the 2010 census. With roughly one-quarter the population density of Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated large American city, behind only New York City among cities greater than 200,000 population, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, following only four of the five New York City boroughs
A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
...
.
San Francisco is part of the five-county San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 4.7 million people ( 13th most populous in the U.S.), and has served as its traditional demographic focal point. It is also part of the greater 14-county San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area, whose population is over 9.6 million, making it the fifth-largest in the United States .
Race, ethnicity, religion, and languages
As of the census, the racial makeup and population of San Francisco included: 361,382 Whites (41.3%), 296,505 Asians (33.9%), 46,725 African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
(5.3%), 86,233 Multiracial Americans
Multiracial Americans, also known as mixed-race Americans, are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more Race and ethnicity in the United States, races. The term may also include Americans of multiracial people, mixed-race ancestry who ethn ...
(9.9%), 6,475 Native Americans and Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tli ...
(0.7%), 3,476 Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaiʻi was settled at least 800 years ago by Polynesian ...
and other Pacific Islanders (0.4%) and 73,169 persons of other races (8.4%). There were 136,761 Hispanic or Latino residents of any race (15.6%).
San Francisco is a majority minority city, as non-Hispanic White
Non-Hispanic Whites, also referred to as White Anglo Americans or Non-Latino Whites, are White Americans who are classified by the United States census as "White" and not of Hispanic or Latino origin. According to annual estimates from the Unit ...
residents comprise less than half of the population; in 1940 they formed 92.5% of the population.
In 2010, residents of Chinese ethnicity constituted the largest single ethnic minority group in San Francisco at 21% of the population; other large Asian groups include Filipinos
Filipinos () are citizens or people identified with the country of the Philippines. Filipinos come from various Austronesian peoples, all typically speaking Filipino language, Filipino, Philippine English, English, or other Philippine language ...
(5%) and Vietnamese (2%), with Japanese, Koreans
Koreans are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. The majority of Koreans live in the two Korean sovereign states of North and South Korea, which are collectively referred to as Korea. As of 2021, an estimated 7.3 m ...
and many other Asian and Pacific Islander groups represented in the city. The population of Chinese ancestry is most heavily concentrated in Chinatown and the Sunset
Sunset (or sundown) is the disappearance of the Sun at the end of the Sun path, below the horizon of the Earth (or any other astronomical object in the Solar System) due to its Earth's rotation, rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth, it ...
and Richmond Districts. Filipinos
Filipinos () are citizens or people identified with the country of the Philippines. Filipinos come from various Austronesian peoples, all typically speaking Filipino language, Filipino, Philippine English, English, or other Philippine language ...
are most concentrated in SoMa and the Crocker-Amazon; the latter neighborhood shares a border with Daly City, which has one of the highest concentrations of Filipinos in North America. The Tenderloin District is home to a large portion of the city's Vietnamese population as well as businesses and restaurants, which is known as the city's Little Saigon.
The principal Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
groups in the city were those of Mexican (7%) and Salvadoran (2%) ancestry. The Hispanic population is most heavily concentrated in the Mission District, Tenderloin District, and Excelsior District. The city's percentage of Hispanic residents is less than half of that of the state.
African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
constituted about 5% of San Francisco's population in 2020; their share of the city's population has been decreasing since the 1970s. The majority of the city's Black residents live in the neighborhoods of Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, and the Fillmore District. There are smaller Black communities in Diamond Heights, Glen Park, and Mission District.
Unlike many other Western cities, San Francisco has a significant Irish American
Irish Americans () are Irish ethnics who live within in the United States, whether immigrants from Ireland or Americans with full or partial Irish ancestry.
Irish immigration to the United States
From the 17th century to the mid-19th c ...
population. Drawn by the California Gold Rush, the Irish were one of the first major White immigrant groups to arrive in California, settling in the city of San Francisco. The Irish historically settled in Irish Hill, which was razed following World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Despite this, San Francisco is still one of only three counties in the entire Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau.
As American settlement i ...
whose White population is plurality (20.6%) Irish.
The city has long been home to a significant Jewish community; in 2018 Jewish Americans
American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jews, Jewish, whether by Jewish culture, culture, ethnicity, or Judaism, religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of Am ...
made up an estimated 10% (80,000) of the city's population. It the third-largest Jewish community in proportional terms in the United States, behind only those of New York City, and Los Angeles, respectively, and it is also relatively young compared to other major U.S. cities. The Jewish community resides throughout the city, but the Richmond District is home to an ethnic enclave of mostly Russian Jews. The Fillmore District was formerly a mostly Jewish neighborhood from the 1920s until the 1970s, when many of its Jewish residents moved to other neighborhoods of the city as well as the suburbs of nearby Marin County.
According to a 2018 study by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Jews make up 10% (80,000) of the city's population, making Judaism the second-largest religion in San Francisco after Christianity. A prior 2014 study by the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
, the largest religious groupings in San Francisco's metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...
are Christians (48%), followed by those of no religion (35%), Hindus (5%), Jews (3%), Buddhists (2%), Muslims (1%) and a variety of other religions have smaller followings. According to the same study by the Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...
, about 20% of residents in the area are Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
, and 25% professing Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
beliefs. Meanwhile, 10% of the residents in metropolitan San Francisco identify as agnostics, while 5% identify as atheists.
, 55% (411,728) of San Francisco residents spoke only English at home, while 19% (140,302) spoke a variety of Chinese (mostly Taishanese and Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
), 12% (88,147) Spanish, 3% (25,767) Tagalog, and 2% (14,017) Russian. In total, 45% (342,693) of San Francisco's population spoke a language at home other than English.
Ethnic clustering
San Francisco has several prominent Chinese, Mexican, and Filipino neighborhoods including Chinatown and the Mission District. Research collected on the immigrant clusters in the city show that more than half of the Asian population in San Francisco is either Chinese-born (40.3%) or Philippine-born (13.1%), and of the Mexican population 21% were Mexican-born, meaning these are people who recently immigrated to the United States. Between the years of 1990 and 2000, the number of foreign-born residents increased from 33% to nearly 40%. During this same time period, the San Francisco metropolitan area received 850,000 immigrants, ranking third in the United States after Los Angeles and New York.
Education, households, and income
Of all major cities in the United States, San Francisco has the second-highest percentage of residents with a college degree, second only to Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
. Over 44% of adults have a bachelor's or higher degree. San Francisco had the highest rate at 7,031 per square mile, or over 344,000 total graduates in the city's .
San Francisco has the highest estimated percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 largest U.S. cities, at 15%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex households of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other metropolitan area
A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...
.
San Francisco ranks third of American cities in median household income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136. An emigration of middle-class families has left the city with a lower proportion of children than any other large American city, with the dog population cited as exceeding the child population of 115,000, in 2018. The city's poverty rate is 12%, lower than the national average.
Homelessness has been a chronic problem for San Francisco since the early 1970s.
The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any major U.S. city.
There are 345,811 households in the city, out of which: 133,366 households (39%) were individuals, 109,437 (32%) were opposite-sex married couples, 63,577 (18%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 21,677 (6%) were unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 10,384 (3%) were same-sex married couples or partnerships. The average household size was 2.26; the average family size was 3.11. 452,986 people (56%) lived in rental housing units, and 327,985 people (41%) lived in owner-occupied housing units.
The median age of the city population is 38 years.
San Francisco declared itself a sanctuary city
A sanctuary city is a municipality that limits or denies its cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration law.
Proponents of sanctuary cities cite motives such as reducing the fear of persons which illegally immigrated fr ...
in 1989, and city officials strengthened the stance in 2013 with its 'Due Process for All' ordinance. The law declared local authorities could not hold immigrants for immigration offenses if they had no violent felonies on their records and did not currently face charges. The city issues a Resident ID Card regardless of the applicant's immigration status.
Homelessness
Homelessness in San Francisco emerged as a major issue in the late 20th century and remains a growing problem in modern times.
8,035 homeless people were counted in San Francisco's 2019 point-in-time street and shelter count. This was an increase of more than 17% over the 2017 count of 6,858 people. 5,180 of the people were living unsheltered on the streets and in parks. 26% of respondents in the 2019 count identified job loss as the primary cause of their homelessness, 18% cited alcohol or drug use, and 13% cited being evicted from their residence.
The city of San Francisco has been dramatically increasing its spending to service the growing population homelessness crisis: spending jumped by $241 million in 2016–17 to total $275 million, compared to a budget of just $34 million the previous year. In 2017–18 the budget for combatting homelessness stood at $305 million. In the 2019–2020 budget year, the city budgeted $368 million for homelessness services. In the proposed 2020–2021 budget the city budgeted $850 million for homelessness services.
In January 2018 a United Nations special rapporteur on homelessness, Leilani Farha, stated that she was "completely shocked" by San Francisco's homelessness crisis during a visit to the city. She compared the "deplorable conditions" of the homeless camps she witnessed on San Francisco's streets to those she had seen in Mumbai
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
. In May 2020, San Francisco officially sanctioned homeless
Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...
encampments.
According to San Francisco's Point-in-Time (PIT) count, the homeless population in 2024 was approximately 8,323 individuals. Additionally, over 20,000 people in the city were seeking homeless services.
Crime
San Francisco's violent crime rate is low compared to other major cities, though many residents are still concerned about it.
In 2011, 50 murders were reported, which is 6.1 per 100,000 people. There were about 134 rapes, 3,142 robberies, and about 2,139 assaults. There were about 4,469 burglaries, 25,100 thefts, and 4,210 motor vehicle thefts. The Tenderloin area has the highest crime rate in San Francisco: 70% of the city's violent crimes, and around one-fourth of the city's murders, occur in this neighborhood. The Tenderloin also sees high rates of drug abuse, gang violence, and prostitution. Another area with high crime rates is the Bayview-Hunters Point area. In the first six months of 2015 there were 25 murders compared to 14 in the first six months of 2014. However, the murder rate is still much lower than in past decades. That rate, though, did rise again by the close of 2016. According to the San Francisco Police Department, there were 59 murders in the city in 2016, an annual total that marked a 13.5% increase in the number of homicides (52) from 2015. The city has also gained a reputation for car break-ins, with over 19,000 car break-ins occurring in 2021.
During the first half of 2018, human feces on San Francisco sidewalks were the second-most-frequent complaint of city residents, with about 65 calls per day. The city has formed a "poop patrol" to attempt to combat the problem.
Several street gangs have operated in the city over the decades, including MS-13, the Sureños and Norteños in the Mission District.
African-American street gangs familiar in other cities, including the Bloods, Crips
The Crips are a primarily African-American alliance of street gangs that are based in the coastal regions of Southern California. Founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, mainly by Raymond Washington and Stanley Williams, the Crips ...
, and their sets, have struggled to establish footholds in San Francisco, while police and prosecutors have been accused of liberally labeling young African-American males as gang members.
Criminal Triad groups such as the Wo Hop To, were active in San Francisco in the 20th century. According to statistics released by SFPD in April 2024, the crime figures were down in the first 100 days of the year, namely in terms of robberies, burglaries and larceny. In the first half of 2024, San Francisco experienced a 32% decrease in overall crime compared to the previous year. Personal property theft saw a 41% reduction, and violent crimes, including gun-related incidents, decreased by 30%.
Economy
The city has a diversified service economy, with employment spread across a wide range of professional services, including tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...
, financial services
Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...
, and high tech
High technology (high tech or high-tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the state of the art, cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the ...
nology. In 2016, approximately 27% of workers were employed in professional business services; 14% in leisure and hospitality; 13% in government services; 12% in education and health care; 11% in trade, transportation, and utilities; and 8% in financial activities. In 2023, GDP in the five-county San Francisco metropolitan area grew 3.4% in real terms to $779 billion. Additionally, in 2023 the 14-county San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area had a GDP of $1.397 trillion, ranking 3rd among CSAs, and ahead of all but 15 countries. , San Francisco County ranked 11th by income per capita among U.S. counties, with a per capita personal income of $164,807. Marin County, directly to the north over 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 in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...
, and San Mateo County, directly to the south on the Peninsula
A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula.
Etymology
The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...
, were the 7th and 9th highest-income counties respectively.
The legacy of the California gold rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street in the Financial District became known as the " Wall Street of the West", home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in ...
, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters, since relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...
. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks, and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city. With over 30 international financial institutions, six Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...
companies, and a large supporting infrastructure of professional services—including law, public relations, architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...
and design—San Francisco is designated as an Alpha(-) World City. The 2024 Global Financial Centres Index
The Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) ranks the competitiveness of financial centres based on over 29,000 assessments from an online questionnaire and over 100 indices from organisations such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co ...
ranked San Francisco as the fifth-most competitive financial center in the world.
Beginning in the 1990s, San Francisco's economy diversified away from finance and tourism towards the growing fields of high tech, biotechnology
Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...
, and medical research
Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...
. Technology jobs accounted for just 1 percent of San Francisco's economy in 1990, growing to 4 percent in 2010 and an estimated 8 percent by the end of 2013. San Francisco became a center of Internet start-up companies during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and the subsequent social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
boom of the late 2000s (decade). Since 2010, San Francisco proper has attracted an increasing share of venture capital investments as compared to nearby Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
, attracting 423 financings worth US$4.58 billion in 2013. In 2004, the city approved a payroll tax exemption for biotechnology companies to foster growth in the Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus and hospital of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Mission Bay hosts the UCSF Medical Center, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, and Gladstone Institutes, as well as more than 40 private-sector life sciences companies.
According to academic Rob Wilson, San Francisco is a global city, a status that pre-dated the city's popularity during the California gold rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) 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 from the rest of the U ...
. However, the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
has led to high office vacancy rates and the accelerating evacuation of many retail and tech businesses out of the downtown core of San Francisco. Attributed causes include a shift to remote work in the technology and professional services sectors, as well as high levels of homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area, homelessness, drug use, and crime in areas around downtown San Francisco, such as the Tenderloin and Mid-Market, San Francisco, Mid-Market neighborhoods.
The top employer in San Francisco is the city government itself, employing 5.6% (35,000+ people) of the city's workforce, followed by UCSF with over 29,000 employees. The largest private-sector employer is Salesforce, with 11,953 employees, . Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms made up 85% of city establishments in 2006, and the number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. The growth of national big-box store, big box and formula retail chains into the city has been made intentionally difficult by political and civic consensus. In an effort to buoy small privately owned businesses in San Francisco and preserve the unique retail personality of the city, the Small Business Commission started a publicity campaign in 2004 to keep a larger share of retail dollars in the local economy, and the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods where formula retail establishments can set up shop, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters. However, by 2016, San Francisco was rated low by small businesses in a Business Friendliness Survey.
Manufacturing in the United States, Like many U.S. cities, San Francisco once had a significant manufacturing sector employing nearly 60,000 workers in 1969, but nearly all production left for cheaper locations by the 1980s.[
] , San Francisco has seen a small resurgence in manufacturing, with more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs across 500 companies, doubling since 2011. The city's largest manufacturing employer is Anchor Brewing Company, and the largest by revenue is Timbuk2.
As of the first quarter of , the median value of homes in San Francisco County was $1,297,030. It ranked third in the U.S. for counties with highest median home value, behind Nantucket, Massachusetts and San Mateo County, California.
Technology
San Francisco became a hub for technology-driven economic growth during the internet boom of the 1990s, and still holds an important position in the world city network today. Intense redevelopment towards the "new economy" makes business more technologically minded. Between the years of 1999 and 2000, the job growth rate was 4.9%, creating over 50,000 jobs in technology firms and internet content production. However, the technology industry has become geographically dispersed.
In the second technological boom driven by social media in the mid-2000s, San Francisco became a location for companies such as Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
, Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, Ubisoft San Francisco, Ubisoft, Facebook, and Twitter (now known as ''X'') to base their tech offices and for their employees to live.
The final wave of technology materialized as AI companies have either been founded in the city or moved there attracted to a large talent pool, proximity to venture capital, and serendipitous connections.
The Sunset Reservoir Solar Project, completed in 2010, installed 24,000 solar panels on the roof of the reservoir. The 5-megawatt plant more than tripled the city's 2-megawatt solar generation capacity when it opened in December 2010.
Tourism and conventions
Tourism is one of San Francisco's most important private-sector industries, accounting for more than one out of seven jobs in the city. The city's San Francisco in popular culture, frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. In 2016, it attracted the fifth-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the United States. More than 25 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2016, adding US$9.96 billion to the economy.
With a large hotel infrastructure and a major convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is a popular destination for annual conventions and conferences.
Some of the most popular tourist attractions in San Francisco, as noted by the Travel Channel, include 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 in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...
and Alamo Square, San Francisco, Alamo Square Park, home to the famous " Painted Ladies". Both of these locations were often used as landscape shots for the hit American television sitcom ''Full House''. There is also Lombard Street, known for its "crookedness" and extensive views. Tourists also visit Pier 39, which offers dining, shopping, entertainment, and views of the bay, sunbathing California sea lions, the Aquarium of the Bay, and the famous Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island () is a small island about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco in San Francisco Bay, California, near the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Strait. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a Alcatraz Isla ...
.
San Francisco also offers tourists varied nightlife in its neighborhoods.
The new Terminal Project at Pier 27 opened September 25, 2014, as a replacement for the old Pier 35.
A heightened interest in conventioneering in San Francisco, marked by the establishment of convention centers such as Yerba Buena, acted as a feeder into the local tourist economy and resulted in an increase in the hotel industry: "In 1959, the city had fewer than thirty-three hundred first-class hotel rooms; by 1970, the number was nine thousand; and by 1999, there were more than thirty thousand." The pink capitalism, commodification of the Castro District, San Francisco, Castro District has contributed to San Francisco's tourist economy.
Arts and culture
Although the Financial District, Union Square, San Francisco, Union Square, and Fisherman's Wharf are well known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its numerous culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use development, mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around List of streets in San Francisco, central commercial corridors to which residents and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco is ranked the "most walkable" city in the United States by Walk Score. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues that cater to the daily needs of local residents while also serving many visitors and tourists. Some neighborhoods are dotted with boutiques, cafés and nightlife such as Union Street in Cow Hollow, San Francisco, Cow Hollow, 24th Street in Noe Valley, Valencia Street in the Mission, Grant Avenue in North Beach, and Irving Street in the Sunset District, San Francisco, Inner Sunset. This approach especially has influenced the continuing South of Market neighborhood redevelopment with businesses and neighborhood services rising alongside high-rise residences.
Since the 1990s, the demand for skilled information technology workers from local startups and nearby Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
has attracted white-collar workers from all over the world and created a high standard of living in San Francisco. Many neighborhoods that were once blue-collar, middle, and lower class have been Gentrification, gentrifying, as many of the city's traditional business and industrial districts have experienced a renaissance driven by the redevelopment of the Embarcadero, including the neighborhoods South Beach, San Francisco, South Beach and Mission Bay. The city's property values and household income have risen to among the highest in the nation, creating a large and upscale restaurant, retail, and entertainment scene. According to a 2014 quality of life survey of global cities, San Francisco has the Most livable cities, highest quality of living of any U.S. city. However, due to the exceptionally high cost of living, many of the city's middle and lower-class families have been leaving the city for the outer suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area, or for California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. By June 2, 2015, the median rent was reported to be as high as $4,225. The high cost of living is due in part to restrictive planning laws which limit new residential construction.
The international character that San Francisco has enjoyed since its founding is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its residents born overseas, San Francisco has numerous neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic institutions catering to new arrivals. In particular, the arrival of many ethnic Chinese, which began to accelerate in the 1970s, has complemented the long-established community historically based in Chinatown throughout the city and has transformed the annual San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade, Chinese New Year Parade into the largest event of its kind on the West Coast.
With the arrival of the Beat Generation, "beat" writers and artists of the 1950s and societal changes culminating in the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s, San Francisco became a center of Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal activism and of the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture that arose at that time. The Democratic Party (United States), Democrats and to a lesser extent the Green Party (United States), Green Party have dominated Politics of San Francisco, city politics since the late 1970s, after the John Barbagelata, last serious Republican Party (United States), Republican challenger for city office 1975 San Francisco mayoral election, lost the 1975 mayoral election by a narrow margin. San Francisco has not voted more than 20% for a Republican Party (United States), Republican presidential or senatorial candidate since 1988 United States presidential election, 1988. In 2007, the city expanded its Medicaid and other indigent medical programs into the Healthy San Francisco program, which subsidy, subsidizes certain medical services for eligible residents.
Since 1993, the San Francisco Department of Public Health has distributed 400,000 Needle and syringe programmes#San Francisco, free syringes every month aimed at reducing HIV and other health risks for drug users, as well as providing disposal sites and services.
San Francisco also has had a very active environmental community. Starting with the founding of the Sierra Club in 1892 to the establishment of the non-profit Friends of the Urban Forest in 1981, San Francisco has been at the forefront of many global discussions regarding the environment. The 1980 San Francisco Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance, San Francisco Recycling Program was one of the earliest curbside recycling programs. The city's GoSolarSF incentive promotes solar installations and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is rolling out the CleanPowerSF program to sell electricity from local renewable sources. SF Greasecycle is a program to recycle used cooking oil for conversion to biodiesel.
LGBTQ
San Francisco has long had an LGBTQ people, LGBTQ-friendly LGBTQ culture in San Francisco, history. It was home to the first lesbian-rights organization in the United States, Daughters of Bilitis; the first openly gay person to run for public office in the United States, José Sarria; the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, Harvey Milk; the first openly lesbian judge appointed in the U.S., Mary C. Morgan; and the first transgender police commissioner, Theresa Sparks. The city's large gay population has created and sustained a politically and culturally active community over many decades, developing a powerful presence in San Francisco's civic life. Survey data released in 2015 by Gallup (company), Gallup places the proportion of LGBTQ adults in the San Francisco metro area at 6.2%, which is the highest proportion of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas as measured by the polling organization.
One of the most popular destinations for gay tourists internationally, the city hosts San Francisco Pride, one of the largest and oldest pride parades. San Francisco Pride events have been held continuously since 1972. The events are themed and a new theme is created each year. In 2013, over 1.5 million people attended, around 500,000 more than the previous year. Pink Saturday is an annual street party held the Saturday before the pride parade, which coincides with the Dyke march.
The Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual BDSM and leather subculture street fair that is held in September, endcapping San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". It started in 1984 and is California's third-largest single-day, outdoor spectator event and the world's largest leather event and showcase for BDSM products and culture.
Performing arts
San Francisco's San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing arts companies in the country. The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America as well as the San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet is the oldest ballet company in the United States, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Fra ...
, while the San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley, San Francisco, Hayes Valley ne ...
plays in Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, Davies Symphony Hall. Opened in 2013, the SFJAZZ Center hosts jazz performances year round.
The Fillmore is a music venue located in the Western Addition. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that gained fame in the 1960s, housing the stage where now-famous musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, and Jefferson Airplane first performed, fostering the San Francisco Sound. It closed its doors in 1971 with a final performance by Santana (band), Santana and reopened in 1994 with a show by the Smashing Pumpkins.
San Francisco has a large number of List of theatres in San Francisco, theaters and live performance venues. Local theater companies have been noted for risk taking and innovation. The Tony Award-winning non-profit American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is a member of the national League of Resident Theatres. Other local winners of the Regional Theatre Tony Award include the San Francisco Mime Troupe.[Jones, Chad]
"Tonys By the Bay"
''Theatre Bay Area Magazine'', May/June 2014.
San Francisco theaters frequently host pre-Broadway theatre, Broadway engagements and tryout runs, and some original San Francisco productions have later moved to Broadway.
Museums
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) houses 20th century and contemporary works of art. It moved to its current building in the South of Market neighborhood in 1995 and attracted more than 600,000 visitors annually. SFMOMA closed for renovation and expansion in 2013. The museum reopened on May 14, 2016, with an addition, designed by Snøhetta (company), Snøhetta, that has doubled the museum's size.
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities and works of art at its Lincoln Park (San Francisco), Lincoln Park building modeled after its Palais de la Légion d'Honneur, Parisian namesake. The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park features American decorative pieces and anthropological holdings from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, while Asian art is housed in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Asian Art Museum. Opposite the de Young stands the California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
, a natural history museum that also hosts the Morrison Planetarium and Steinhart Aquarium. Located on Pier 15 on the Embarcadero, the Exploratorium is an interactive science museum. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is a non-collecting institution that hosts a broad array of temporary exhibitions. On Nob Hill, the San Francisco Cable Car Museum, Cable Car Museum is a working museum featuring the cable car powerhouse, which drives the cables. Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was founded in 1998 and is part of the California College of the Arts.
Sports
Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
have played in San Francisco since moving from New York in 1958. The Giants play at Oracle Park, which opened in 2000. The Giants won World Series titles in 2010 World Series, 2010, 2012 World Series, 2012, and in 2014 World Series, 2014. The Giants have boasted stars such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Barry Bonds (MLB's List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders, career home run leader). In 2012, San Francisco was ranked No. 1 in a study that examined which U.S. metro areas have produced the most Major Leaguers since 1920.
The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) began playing in 1946 as an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) league charter member, moved to the NFL in 1950 and into Candlestick Park in 1971. The team left San Francisco in 2014, moving approximately 50 miles south to Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, and began playing its home games at Levi's Stadium, Despite this, the 49ers are still branded as a San Francisco team, and when the team hosted Super Bowl 50 events were hosted in San Francisco such as the annual National Football League Experience, NFL Experience which was held at the Moscone Center and "Super Bowl City" which opened on January 30 at Justin Herman Plaza on The Embarcadero. The 49ers have won five Super Bowl titles between 1982 and 1995.
The NBA's Golden State Warriors have played in the San Francisco Bay Area since moving from Philadelphia in 1962. The Warriors played as the San Francisco Warriors, from 1962 to 1971, before being renamed the Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Founded in 1946 i ...
prior to the 1971–1972 season in an attempt to present the team as a representation of the whole state of California, which had already adopted "The Golden State" nickname. The Warriors' arena, Chase Center, is located in San Francisco. After winning two championships in Philadelphia, they have won five championships since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, and made five consecutive NBA Finals from 2015 to 2019, winning three of them. They won again in 2022, the franchise's first championship while residing in San Francisco proper.
At the collegiate level, the San Francisco Dons compete in NCAA Division I. Bill Russell led the Dons basketball team to NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. There is also the San Francisco State Gators, who compete in NCAA Division II. Oracle Park hosted the annual Fight Hunger Bowl college football game from 2002 through 2013 before it moved to Santa Clara.
There are a handful of lower-league soccer clubs in San Francisco playing mostly from April – June.
The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory community spirit. The San Francisco Marathon attracts more than 21,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz (triathlon), Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, attracted 2,000 top professional and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, founded in 1860, is the oldest Sports club, athletic club in the United States. Its private golf course has hosted the U.S. Open (golf), U.S. Open on five occasions. San Francisco hosted the 2013 America's Cup yacht racing competition.
With an ideal climate for outdoor activities, San Francisco has ample resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than of segregated cycle facilities, bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city.
San Francisco residents have often ranked among the fittest in the country. Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
has miles of paved and unpaved running trails as well as a golf course and disc golf course.
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.
San Francisco also has had Esports teams, such as the Overwatch League's San Francisco Shock. Established in 2017, they won two back-to-back championship titles in 2019 and 2020.
Parks and recreation
Several of San Francisco's parks and nearly all of its beaches form part of the regional Golden Gate National Recreation Area, one of the most visited units of the National Park Service, National Park system in the United States with over 13 million visitors a year. Among the GGNRA's attractions within the city are Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Ocean Beach, which runs along the Pacific Ocean shoreline and is frequented by a surfing community, and Baker Beach, which is located in a cove west of the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as the California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, that is among the largest List of natural history museums, museums of natural history in the world, housing over ...
, a research institute and natural history museum.
The Presidio of San Francisco is the former 18th century Spanish military base, which today is one of the city's largest parks and home to numerous museums and institutions. Also within the Presidio is Crissy Field, a former airfield that was restored to its natural salt marsh ecosystem. The GGNRA also administers Fort Funston, Lands End (San Francisco), Lands End, Fort Mason, and Alcatraz. The National Park Service separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park – a fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park Historic District, Aquatic Park.
There are more than List of parks in San Francisco, 220 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department. The largest and best-known city park is Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond District, San Francisco, Richmond and Sunset District, San Francisco, Sunset districts on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the Lis ...
, which stretches from the center of the city west to the Pacific Ocean. Once covered in native grasses and sand dunes, the park was conceived in the 1860s and was created by the extensive planting of thousands of non-native trees and plants. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden (San Francisco), Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. The Dahlia is the official flower of San Francisco.
Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park that houses more than 250 animal species, many of which are endangered. The only List of California state parks, park managed by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, California State Park system located principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area.
Most of San Francisco's islands are protected as parkland or nature reserves. Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island () is a small island about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco in San Francisco Bay, California, near the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Strait. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a Alcatraz Isla ...
, operated by the National Park Service, is open to the public. The Farallon Islands are protected wildlife refuges. The Seal Rocks (San Francisco, California), Seal Rocks are protected as part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Red Rock Island is the only privately owned island in San Francisco Bay, but is uninhabited. Yerba Buena Island is largely utilized by the military.
San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to have a park within a 10-Minute Walk of every resident. It also ranks fifth in the U.S. for park access and quality in the 2018 ParkScore ranking of the top 100 park systems across the United States, according to the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.
Government
The Mayor of San Francisco, mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the city council. The government of San Francisco is a charter city and is constituted of two co-equal branches: the executive branch is headed by the mayor and includes other citywide elected and appointed officials as well as the civil service; the 11-member Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch, is headed by a president and is responsible for passing laws and budgets, though San Franciscans also make use of Popular initiative, direct ballot initiatives to pass legislation.
Because of its unique city-county status, the local government is able to exercise jurisdiction over certain property outside city limits. San Francisco International Airport, though located in San Mateo County, is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco's largest jail complex (County Jail No. 5) is located in San Mateo County, in an unincorporated area adjacent to San Bruno, California, San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and drainage basin, watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913.
The members of the Board of Supervisors are elected as representatives of specific districts within the city. Upon the death or resignation of the mayor, the President of the Board of Supervisors becomes acting mayor until the full Board elects an interim replacement for the remainder of the term. In 2011, Ed Lee (politician), Ed Lee was selected by the board to finish the term of Gavin Newsom, who resigned to take office as Lieutenant Governor of California. Lee (who won two elections to remain mayor) was temporarily replaced by San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed after he died on December 12, 2017. Supervisor Mark Farrell (politician), Mark Farrell was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to finish Lee's term on January 23, 2018.
Most local offices in San Francisco are elected using Ranked-choice voting in the United States, ranked choice voting.
San Francisco serves as the regional hub for many arms of the federal bureaucracy, including the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Federal Reserve Bank, and the United States Mint, U.S. Mint. Until Base Realignment and Closure, decommissioning in the early 1990s, the city had major military installations at the Presidio, Treasure Island, and San Francisco Naval Shipyard, Hunters Point—a legacy still reflected in the annual celebration of Fleet Week. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the Supreme Court of California, state supreme court and other state agencies. Foreign governments maintain List of diplomatic missions in the San Francisco Bay Area, more than seventy consulates in San Francisco.
The municipal budget for fiscal year 2015–16 was $8.99 billion, and is one of the largest city budgets in the United States. The City of San Francisco spends more per resident than any city other than Washington, D.C., over $10,000 in FY 2015–2016. The city employs around 27,000 workers.
In the California State Senate, San Francisco is in . In the California State Assembly, it is split between , and .[
In the United States House of Representatives, San Francisco is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in the California's 11th congressional district, 11th District, represented by . A sliver in the southwest is part of the California's 15th congressional district, 15th District represented by .
One of San Francisco's most notable achievements is its ambitious zero-waste goal, which aims to divert 100% of waste from landfills by 2025. The city has already made significant strides, with widespread recycling and composting programs that encourage residents to minimize waste. San Francisco was one of the first U.S. cities to ban plastic bags and continues to lead in banning single-use plastics, setting a standard for cities across the country.
]
Education
Colleges and universities
The University of California, San Francisco is the sole campus of the University of California, University of California system entirely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States and operates the UCSF Medical Center, which ranks as the number one hospital in California and the number 5 in the country. UCSF is a major local employer, second in size only to the city and county government. A Mission Bay campus was opened in 2003, complementing its original facility in List of hills in San Francisco, Parnassus Heights. It contains research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences entrepreneurship and will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise. All in all, UCSF operates more than 20 facilities across San Francisco.
The University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, 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.
San Francisco's two University of California institutions have recently formed an official affiliation in the UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy.
San Francisco State University is part of the California State University system and is located near Lake Merced. The school has approximately 30,000 students and awards undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in more than 100 disciplines.[ The City College of San Francisco, with its main facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the largest two-year community colleges in the country. It has an enrollment of about 100,000 students and offers an extensive continuing education program.
Founded in 1855, the ]University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...
, a private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university located on Lone Mountain (California), Lone Mountain, is the oldest institution of higher education in San Francisco and one of the oldest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian university formed in 1901 and located in the Financial District.
California Institute of Integral Studies, founded in 1968, offers graduate programs in its Schools of Professional Psychology & Health, and Consciousness and Transformation.
With an enrollment of 13,000 students, the Academy of Art University is the largest institute of art and design in the nation. The California College of the Arts, located north of Potrero Hill, has programs in architecture, fine arts, design, and writing. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only independent music school on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. The San Francisco Art Institute, founded in 1871 and the oldest art school west of the Mississippi, closed in 2022.
The California Culinary Academy had programs in the culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, and hospitality and restaurant management, and is now closed.
Primary and secondary schools
Public school (government funded), Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District, which covers the entire city and county, as well as the California State Board of Education for some charter schools. Lowell High School (San Francisco), Lowell High School, the oldest public high school in the U.S. west of the Mississippi River, Mississippi, and the smaller Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Public school students attend schools based on an assignment system rather than neighborhood proximity.
Just under 30% of the city's school-age population attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private school, private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, Archdiocese of San Francisco.
San Francisco has nearly 300 preschool programs primarily operated by Head Start (program), Head Start, San Francisco Unified School District, private for-profit, private non-profit and Child care#Family child care homes, family child care providers. All four-year-old children living in San Francisco are offered Universal preschool, universal access to preschool.
Media
The major daily newspaper in San Francisco is the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', which is currently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen, whose daily musings attracted critical acclaim and represented the "voice of San Francisco". ''The San Francisco Examiner'', once the cornerstone of William Randolph Hearst's media empire and the home of Ambrose Bierce, declined in circulation over the years and now takes the form of a free daily tabloid, under new ownership.
''Sing Tao Daily'' claims to be the largest of several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. ''SF Weekly, SF Weekly'' is the city's alternative weekly newspaper. ''San Francisco (magazine), San Francisco'' and ''7x7 (magazine), 7x7'' are major glossy magazines about San Francisco. The national newsmagazine ''Mother Jones (magazine), Mother Jones'' is also based in San Francisco. San Francisco is home to online-only media publications such as SFist, and ''AsianWeek''.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest designated market area, television market in the U.S. It is the fourth-largest designated market area, radio market after that of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
All major U.S. television networks have List of television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, affiliates serving the region, with most of them based in the city. CNN, MSNBC, BBC, RT (TV network), Russia Today, and CCTV America also have regional news bureaus in San Francisco. Bloomberg West was launched in 2011 from a studio on the Embarcadero and CNBC broadcasts from One Market Plaza since 2015. ESPN uses the local ABC studio for their broadcasting. The regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and its sister station Comcast SportsNet California, are both located in San Francisco. The Pac-12 Network is also based in 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 neighborhood. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio affiliate in the country.
KUSF (University of San Francisco), KUSF is a student-run radio station by college students from the University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit university in San Francisco, California, United States. Founded in 1855, it has nearly 9,000 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees ...
. Another local broadcaster, KPOO, is an independent, African-American owned and operated noncommercial radio station established in 1971. CNET Networks, CNET, founded 1994, and Salon.com, 1995, are based in San Francisco. Sutro Tower is an important Radio masts and towers, broadcast tower located between Mount Sutro and the Twin Peaks
''Twin Peaks'' is an American Surrealist cinema, surrealist Mystery film, mystery-Horror film, horror Drama (film and television), drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It Pilot (Twin Peaks), premiered on American Broad ...
, built in 1973 for KTVU, KRON, and KPIX.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Public transportation
Transit is the most used form of transportation every day in San Francisco. Every weekday, more than 560,000 people travel on Muni's 69 bus routes and more than 140,000 customers ride the Muni Metro light rail system. 32% of San Francisco residents use public transportation for their daily commute to work, ranking it fourth in the United States and first on the West Coast. The San Francisco Municipal Railway, primarily known as Muni, is the primary public transit system of San Francisco. As of 2023, Muni is the eighth-largest transit system in the United States. The system operates a combined light rail and subway system, the Muni Metro, as well as large bus and Trolleybuses in San Francisco, trolley coach networks. Additionally, it runs a F Market, historic streetcar line, which runs on Market Street from The Castro, Castro Street to Fisherman's Wharf. It also operates the famous cable cars, which have been designated as a National Historic Landmark and are a major tourist attraction.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), a regional Rapid Transit system, connects San Francisco with the East Bay
The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Wi ...
and San Jose through the underwater Transbay Tube. The line, which contains all except the Orange Line, runs under Market Street to Civic Center, San Francisco, Civic Center where it turns south to the Mission District, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae, California, Millbrae. BART also shares stations with SFMTA Muni Metro under Market Street.
Another commuter rail system, Caltrain, runs from San Francisco along the San Francisco Peninsula to San Jose, California, San Jose. Historically, trains operated by Southern Pacific Lines ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles, via Palo Alto, California, Palo Alto and San Jose, California, San Jose.
Amtrak Thruway runs a shuttle bus from three locations in San Francisco to its station across the bay in Emeryville, California, Emeryville. Additionally, BART offers connections to San Francisco from Amtrak's stations in Emeryville, Oakland and Richmond, California, Richmond, and Caltrain offers connections in San Jose and Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara. Thruway service also runs south to San Luis Obispo, California, San Luis Obispo with connection to the Pacific Surfliner.
San Francisco was an early adopter of carsharing in America. The non-profit City CarShare opened in 2001 and Zipcar closely followed.
San Francisco Bay Ferry operates from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Oakland Ferry Terminal, Oakland, Alameda, California, Alameda, Bay Farm Island, Alameda, California, Bay Farm Island, South San Francisco Ferry Terminal, South San Francisco, Richmond Ferry Terminal, Richmond, and north to Vallejo, California, Vallejo in Solano County, California, Solano County. The Golden Gate Ferry is the other ferry operator with service between San Francisco and Marin County. SolTrans runs supplemental bus service between the Ferry Building and Vallejo.
To accommodate the large amount of San Francisco citizens who commute to the Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
daily, employers like Genentech, Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, and Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
have begun to provide private bus transportation for their employees, from San Francisco locations. These buses have quickly become a heated topic of debate within the city, as San Francisco tech bus protests, protesters claim they block bus lanes and delay public buses.
Freeways and roads
In 2014, only 41.3% of residents commuted by driving alone or carpooling in private vehicles in San Francisco, a decline from 48.6% in 2000. There are 1,088 miles of streets in San Francisco with 946 miles of these streets being surface streets, and 59 miles of freeways. Due to its unique geography, and the Highway revolts in the United States#San Francisco, freeway revolts of the late 1950s,
Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 in California, U.S. Route 101 connects to the western terminus of Interstate 80 and provides access to the south of the city along San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
. Northward, the routing for U.S. 101 uses arterial streets to connect to 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 in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...
, the only direct automobile link to Marin County and the North Bay.
As part of the retrofitting of the Golden Gate Bridge and installation of a suicide barrier, starting in 2019 the railings on the west side of the pedestrian walkway were replaced with thinner, more flexible slat (aircraft), slats in order to improve the bridge's aerodynamic tolerance of high wind to . Starting in June 2020, reports were received of a loud hum produced by the new railing slats, heard across the city when a strong west wind was blowing.
California State Route 1, State Route 1 also enters San Francisco from the north via the Golden Gate Bridge and bisects the city as the 19th Avenue (San Francisco), 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, joining with Interstate 280 (California), Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues south from San Francisco, and also turns to the east along the southern edge of the city, terminating just south of the Bay Bridge in the South of Market (San Francisco), South of Market neighborhood. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz Cou ...
, city leaders demolished the Embarcadero Freeway and a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.
California State Route 35, State Route 35 enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard and terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. California State Route 82, State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, and terminates shortly thereafter at its junction with 280. The western terminus of the historic transcontinental Lincoln Highway, the first road across America, is in San Francisco's Lincoln Park (San Francisco), Lincoln Park.
= Vision Zero
=
In 2014, San Francisco committed to Vision Zero, with the goal of ending all traffic fatalities caused by motor vehicles within the city by 2024. San Francisco's Vision Zero plan calls for investing in engineering, enforcement, and education, and focusing on dangerous intersections. In 2013, 25 people were killed by car and truck drivers while walking and biking in the city and 9 car drivers and passengers were killed in collisions. In 2019, 42 people were killed in traffic collisions in San Francisco.
Airports
Though located south of downtown in Unincorporated area, unincorporated San Mateo County, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines and Alaska Airlines. SFO is a major international gateway to Asia and Europe, with the largest international terminal in North America. In 2011, SFO was the eighth-busiest airport in the U.S. and the 22nd-busiest in the world, handling over 40.9 million passengers.
Located in the Santa Clara Valley, South Bay, the San Jose International Airport (SJC) is the second-busiest airport in the Bay Area, followed by Oakland International Airport, which is a popular, low-cost alternative to SFO.
Cycling and walking
Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco, with 75,000 residents commuting by bicycle each day. In recent years, the city has installed better cycling infrastructure such as protected bike lanes and parking racks. Bay Wheels, previously named Bay Area Bike Share at inception, launched in August 2013 with 700 bikes in downtown San Francisco, selected cities in the East Bay, and San Jose. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Bay Area Air Quality Management District are responsible for the operation with management provided by Motivate (company), Motivate. A major expansion started in 2017, along with a rebranding as Ford GoBike; the company received its current name in 2019.
Pedestrian traffic is also widespread. In 2021, Walk Score ranked San Francisco the most walkable city in the United States.
San Francisco has significantly higher rates of pedestrian and bicyclist traffic deaths than the United States on average. In 2013, 21 pedestrians were killed in vehicle collisions, the highest since 2001, which is 2.5 deaths per 100,000 population – 70% higher than the national average of 1.5.
Cycling in San Francisco, Cycling is becoming increasingly popular in the city. The 2010 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) annual bicycle count showed the number of cyclists at 33 locations had increased 58% from the 2006 baseline counts. In 2008, the MTA estimated that about 128,000 trips were made by bicycle each day in the city, or 6% of total trips. , 2.6% of the city's streets have protected bike lanes, with 28 miles of protected bike lanes in the city. Since 2006, San Francisco has received a Bicycle Friendly Community status of "Gold" from the League of American Bicyclists. In 2022 a measure on the ballot passed to protect JFK drive in Golden Gate Park as a pedestrian and biking space with 59% of voters in favor.
Public safety
The San Francisco Police Department was founded in 1849. The portions of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area located within the city, including the Presidio and Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Ocean Beach, are patrolled by the United States Park Police.
The San Francisco Fire Department provides both fire suppression and emergency medical services to the city.
Sister cities
San Francisco participates in the Sister Cities International, Sister Cities program. A total of 41 consulates general and 23 honorary consulates have offices in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In January 1980, Mayor Dianne Feinstein signed a sister cities agreement with Shanghai during a visit to China.
Notable people
See also
* San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
* List of neighborhoods in San Francisco
* List of people from San Francisco
* List of cities and towns in California
* List of counties in California
* Northern California megaregion
* Ships lost in San Francisco
* USS San Francisco, USS ''San Francisco'', 3 ships
Notes
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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* Heller, Nathan
''Bay Watched – How San Francisco's New Entrepreneurial Culture is Changing the Country'' (article)
(October 2013). ''The New Yorker''
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* Solnit, Rebecca. ''Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas'' (University of California Press, 2010). 144 pp.
online review
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* Winfield, P.H., ''The Charter of San Francisco'' (The fortnightly review Vol. 157–58:2 (1945), p. 69–75)
External links
*
News of San Francisco
— information portal
Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
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