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San Francisco (/ ˌ s æ n f r ə n ˈ s ɪ s k oʊ / SAN frən-SISS-koh; Spanish for 'Saint Francis'), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, financial, and cultural center in Northern California. With a population of 808,437 residents as of 2022, San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of ...
- Neighborhoods
San Francisco from the Presidio, 1966. San Francisco, in the...
- San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area,...
- History of San Francisco
The history of the city of San Francisco, California, and...
- Sister Cities
Sister cities of Los Angeles. This is a list of sister...
- See List
San Francisco, California in the United States has seen many...
- Crime in San Francisco
According to the San Francisco Police Department, there were...
- Mission Dolores
The Mission San Francisco de Asís (Spanish: Misión San...
- San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO, ICAO: KSFO,...
- Neighborhoods
Plan your trip to San Francisco, the city by the bay, with this official guide. Find things to do, places to stay, events, attractions, and more.
- Overview
- Character of the city
San Francisco, city and port, coextensive with San Francisco county, northern California, U.S., located on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. It is a cultural and financial centre of the western United States and one of the country’s most cosmopolitan cities. Area 46 square miles (120 square km). Pop. (2010) 805,235; San F...
San Francisco holds a secure place in the United States’ romantic dream of itself—a cool, elegant, handsome, worldly seaport whose steep streets offer breathtaking views of one of the world’s greatest bays. According to the dream, San Franciscans are sophisticates whose lives hold full measures of such civilized pleasures as music, art, and good food. Their children are to be pitied, for, as the wife of publishing magnate Nelson Doubleday once said, “They will probably grow up thinking all cities are so wonderful.” To San Franciscans their city is a magical place, almost an island, saved by its location and history from the sprawl and monotony that afflicts so much of urban California.
Since World War II, however, San Francisco has had to face the stark realities of urban life: congestion, air and water pollution, violence and vandalism, and the general decay of the inner city. San Francisco’s makeup has been changing as families, mainly white and middle-class, have moved to its suburbs, leaving the city to a population that, viewed statistically, tends to be older and to have fewer married people. Now more than one of every two San Franciscans is “nonwhite”—in this case African American, East Asian, Filipino, Samoan, Vietnamese, Latin American, or Native American. Their dreams increasingly demand a realization that has little to do with the romantic dream of San Francisco. But both the dreams and the realities are important, for they are interwoven in the fabric of the city that might be called Paradox-by-the-Bay.
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It may measure less than 50 square miles and have a population that doesn’t even crack a million, but San Francisco justly ranks as one of the greatest cities in the world. Famous for grand-dame Victorians, cable cars, a dynamic waterfront, and a soaring golden bridge, this city truly has it all.
- Fort Point. The Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf & the Piers. This triple-decker, brick-walled US military fortress was completed in 1861, with 126 cannons, to protect the bay against certain invasion during the…
- Buena Vista Park. The Haight & Hayes Valley. True to its name, this hilltop park offers splendid vistas over the city to Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay. Founded in 1867, this is one of the oldest…
- Conservatory of Flowers. San Francisco. Flower power is alive and well at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers. This gloriously restored 1878 Victorian greenhouse is home to freaky outer…
- Women's Building. The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill. A renowned and beloved Mission landmark since 1979, the nation's first women-owned-and-operated community center is festooned with one of the neighborhood…
Mar 1, 2024 · Planning a visit to San Francisco? From riding a cable car to exploring Alcatraz Island, these are the top-rated things to do in San Francisco, California.
Feb 1, 2022 · San Francisco packs an incredible variety of must-see attractions and cultural landmarks into its 49 square miles. Each district has a distinct character and many things to do, whether it’s restaurants, museums, art, music, and pretty much everything in between.