San Francisco

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the fourth-most populous city in California and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with a population of 826,079 in 2025. Among U.S. cities with a population of 200,000 or more, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income, third by population density, and sixth by aggregate income as of 2024. Some 4.6 million residents live in the city's metropolitan statistical area, which is the 13th-largest in the United States. Around 9.2 million live in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest in the United States.

Overview§

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the fourth-most populous city in California and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with a population of 826,079 in 2025. Among U.S. cities with a population of 200,000 or more, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income, third by population density, and sixth by aggregate income as of 2024. Some 4.6 million residents live in the city's metropolitan statistical area, which is the 13th-largest in the United States. Around 9.2 million live in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest in the United States. Before European settlement, San Francisco was inhabited by the Yelamu Ohlone. On June 29, 1776, settlers from New Spain established the Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate, and the Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, both named for Francis of Assisi. The California gold rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. 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. It was a leading port of embarkation for naval service members shipping out to the Pacific theater in World War II. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, substantial immigration, liberalizing attitudes, the rise of the beatnik and hippie countercultures, the sexual revolution, opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism. The San Francisco Bay Area is among the most economically productive sizeable urban areas in the United States and the world, with a GDP of $1.332 trillion in 2024, higher than all but 17 countries. As of 2020, the OECD-defined metropolitan area, with 6.7 million residents, ranked 5th by GDP ($874 billion) and 2nd by GDP per capita ($131,082) across all metropolitan areas in the OECD countries. San Francisco proper had a GDP of $268 billion and a GDP per capita of $324,000 in 2024. This productivity is spurred by its leading universities, high-tech, healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, and professional services sectors. The city is home to many companies—many in the technology sector—including Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb, Levi's, Gap, OpenAI, Chime, Anthropic, Databricks, Dropbox, and Lyft. In 2022, San Francisco had more than 1.7 million international visitors and around 20 million domestic visitors. It is known for its steep rolling hills and eclectic mix of architecture across varied neighborhoods; its Chinatown and Mission districts; mild climate; and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, 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, San Francisco State University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Legion of Honor, the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Ballet, the San Francisco Opera, the SFJAZZ Center, and the California Academy of Sciences. Two leading league sports teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Golden State Warriors, play their home games within San Francisco. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) counts among 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, Spanish for 'Saint Francis', takes its name from Mission San Francisco de Asís, which had been named in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. The mission gained its name in 1776, when it was established 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 ('good herb' in Spanish), which had been the name of the first civilian pueblo in San Francisco. After the herb that was growing abundantly there, earlier in San Francisco's history, the uninhabited area on the northeastern side of San Francisco was called El Paraje de Yerba Buena. 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 since 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 named California and specifically San Francisco 金山, Gāmsāan, "Gold Mountain". When gold was discovered in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, it was named "New Gold Mountain" (Yue Chinese: 新金山, Sān Gāmsāan) and California and San Francisco as "Old Gold Mountain" (舊金山, Gāu Gāmsāan).

Indigenous history§

The earliest archeological evidence of human habitation in the area dates to 3000 BCE. The Ohlone name for San Francisco was Ahwaste, meaning "place at the bay". The Yelamu group of the Ramaytush people lived 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. The arrival of Spanish colonists, and the establishment of the 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 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, arrived at San Francisco Bay. Having noted the strategic benefits of the area due to its sizeable 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. Juan Bautista de Anza arrived in the area to select sites for a mission and presidio in 1774. 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 and on October 9, Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores, was established by Padre Francisco Palóu. In 1794, the Presidio established the Castillo de San Joaquín, a fortification on the southern side of the Golden Gate, which later came to be known as Fort Point. The province of Alta California was built, which included San Francisco in 1804. At its peak in 1810–1820, the average population at the Mission Dolores settlement was around 1,100 people.

Mexican era (1821–1848)§

In 1821, Spain ceded the Californias to Mexico. Although it was not until 1833 that the missions would be secularized, the extensive California mission system gradually lost its influence during the period of Mexican rule. Agricultural land became largely privatized as ranchos, as was occurring in other parts of California. Coastal trade increased, including a half-dozen barques from several Atlantic ports which regularly sailed in California waters. With the enactment of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, the missions were required 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. Before secularization, the only settlements in San Francisco had been the military settlement at the Presidio and the religious settlement at Mission Dolores. The Presidio garrison, commanded by Mariano Vallejo, relocated to the Presidio of Sonoma, which was regarded as needing a greater military presence due to the proximity of the Russian settlement at Fort Ross in 1835. 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 (named after a native herb) was already a favored anchorage spot and the new settlement and trading post was established 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 of Yerba Buena. The second alcalde, José Joaquín Estudillo, approved the first land grant in Yerba Buena: to William Richardson in 1835. Yerba Buena started to attract American and European settlers; an 1842 census listed 21 residents (11%) born in the United States or Europe, along with one Filipino merchant. After 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). After the capture, U.S. forces appointed both José de Jesús Noé and Washington Allon Bartlett to serve as co-alcaldes (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 his wife's middle name, after the name change to "San Francisco", the name of Vallejo's town was changed to Benicia. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Alta California 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, lacking most of the basic facilities for a proper settlement. Its 1847 population was said to be 459. The California gold rush 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 around 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons, and hotels; many were left to rot, and some were sunk to set up 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. Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to build new land by 1870. Buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850, and the U.S. Army built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the bay. San Francisco County was one of the state's 18 original counties established at California statehood in 1850. San Francisco's city limits originally extended west to Divisadero Street and Castro Street, and south to 20th Street, but 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.

Also to triggering a sharp growth in population, The California gold rush also triggered a wave of entrepreneurial activity as individuals sought to capitalize on the newfound wealth. The discovery of silver deposits, in particular the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further fueled rapid population growth and economic expansion. The influx of fortune seekers and surge in population also brought challenges, including heightened criminal activity and poverty. Lawlessness became 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 started 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 substantial 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, though, collapsed in 1875 as a result of the Panic of 1873, triggering a leading economic crisis in San Francisco.

The resulting unemployment and poverty from the Long Depression led to a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment that culminated in the San Francisco riot of 1877, in which a mob of the city's majority Irish population descended on Chinatown, killing four and causing $100,000 worth of property damage. These events gave rise to the Workingmen's Party of California, led by drayman Denis Kearney and mobilized by his slogan "The Chinese must go!" The party elected one third of delegates to California's Second Constitutional Convention (the most of any organized party), rewriting the state constitution to deny Chinese Americans voting rights in California. This agitation paved the way for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States until it was repealed over 60 years later. 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 started 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 started to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. In 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 leading city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.Also to the population boom, 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 leading earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the quake, 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 entire city blocks to build firebreaks. After the flames died down, it was estimated that more than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including the entire downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people died, though modern estimates put the number far higher in the several thousands. More than half of the city's population of 400,000 was left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages throughout the city, including in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and on the beaches. Jack London 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, later to become Bank of America, provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The influential San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association or SPUR started operating 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. The destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels in turn. 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. It was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, completing them in 1936 and 1937, respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, started its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone and Robert Franklin Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939–40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it.

Postmodern American era (1941–present)§

During World War II, 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 city-owned Sharp Park in Pacifica was also used as an internment camp to detain Japanese Americans. 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 creating the United Nations 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. Substantial urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The onset of containerization made San Francisco's small piers obsolete, and cargo activity moved to the larger Port of Oakland. The city started 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 substantial demographic change, as sizeable segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration 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. The Zebra murders left at least 16 people dead in 1974. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone, in 1978. Bank of America, now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, started operating 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 caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. 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 in San Francisco. The reconstruction allowed 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. Sizeable 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. The city's population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950 by 2000. 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 companies such as Apple and Google. The early 2020s saw a reduction of tech companies' presence in Downtown San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, 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 mainly 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, at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes substantial stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay 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, 27 miles (43 km) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits around forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square", a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly 232 square miles (600 km2).

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, a pair of hills forming one of the city's highest points, forms an overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is 928 feet (283 m) high and is capped with a 103-foot (31 m) tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower, a sizeable 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 leading earthquakes plays a sizeable 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. Though, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage. USGS has released the California 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, along with sizeable sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay along with 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 causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. 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 culverted and built over. The Public Utilities Commission has since been studying proposals to daylight or restore some creeks since the 1990s.

Neighborhoods§

A Historical Center of San Francisco monument, where the 1899–1906 City Hall was once located, is in United Nations Plaza, at 37.7800397°N 122.4135943°W / 37.7800397; -122.4135943 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. The South of Market, which was once San Francisco's industrial core, has seen substantial redevelopment after 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. West of downtown, across Van Ness Avenue, lies the sizeable Western Addition neighborhood, which became established with a sizeable African American population after World War II. 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 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 and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scandinavia. A wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico started to predominate in the 1910s. 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 have become 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, and is now the center of gay life in the city. Located near the city's southern border, the Excelsior District counts among the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco. The Bayview-Hunters Point in the far southeast corner of the city counts among the poorest neighborhoods, though the area has since been the focus of several revitalizing and urban renewal 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. 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 lies the vast Sunset District, a sizeable 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 along with 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 in 1991 reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has since been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace.

Climate§

San Francisco has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb, Trewartha: Csll), characteristic of California's coast, with cool, moist winters and mild dry summers with occasional warm or hot periods. 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 to the north and east. This moderates temperature swings and produces a remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Among leading 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, 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 80 °F (27 °C) on an average of 20 to 25 days a year and 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 62.7 °F (17.1 °C). The rainy period of November to April is slightly cooler, with the normal monthly mean temperature reaching its lowest in January at 51.3 °F (10.7 °C). On average, there are 73 rainy days a year, and annual precipitation averages 23.65 inches (601 mm). Variation in precipitation from year to year is high. Above-average rain years are often associated with warm El Niño conditions in the Pacific while dry years often occur in cold water La Niña periods. A record low 5.59 in (142 mm) of rainfall was recorded at downtown San Francisco, where records have been kept since 1849 in 2013 (a "La Niña" year). Snowfall in the city is very rare, with only 10 measurable accumulations recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976 when up to 5 inches (13 cm) fell on Twin Peaks and up to an inch 1 inch (2.5 cm) in downtown San Francisco.

The highest recorded temperature at the official National Weather Service downtown observation station was 106 °F (41 °C) on September 1, 2017. The warmest ever night of 71 °F (22 °C) was also recorded during that hot spell. The lowest recorded temperature was 27 °F (−3 °C) on December 11, 1932. San Francisco recorded a warmest night at 64 °F (18 °C) and a coldest day at 49 °F (9 °C) during an average year between 1991 and 2020. The coldest daytime high since the station's opening in 1945 was recorded in December 1972 at 37 °F (3 °C). As a coastal city, San Francisco will be heavily affected by climate change. As of 2021, sea levels are projected to rise by as much as 5 feet (1.5 m), resulting in periodic flooding, rising groundwater levels, and lowland floods from more severe storms. San Francisco falls under the USDA Plant hardiness zone 10a and 10b.

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 around the expedition camp at Mountain Lake, near the southern end of today's Presidio: "Round around were grazing deer, and scattered here and there were the antlers of sizeable elk."

Demographics§

According to the 2020 United States census, San Francisco's population was 873,965, an increase of 8.5% from the 2010 census. The city is the second-most densely populated sizeable American city, behind only New York City among cities with populations greater than 200,000. The county, which is the same boundaries as the city, is the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, after four of the five New York City boroughs. 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 as of 2018.

Race, ethnicity, religion, and languages§

As of the 2020 census, the racial makeup and population of San Francisco included: 361,382 Whites (41.3%), 296,505 Asians (33.9%), 46,725 African Americans (5.3%), 86,233 Multiracial Americans (9.9%), 6,475 Native Americans and Alaska Natives (0.7%), 3,476 Native Hawaiians 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 residents comprise less than half of the population; in 1940 they formed 92.5% of the population. Residents of Chinese ethnicity constituted the largest single ethnic minority group in San Francisco at 21% of the population; other sizeable Asian groups include Filipinos (5%) and Vietnamese (2%), with Japanese, Koreans and many other Asian and Pacific Islander groups represented in the city in 2010. The population of Chinese ancestry is most heavily concentrated in Chinatown and the Sunset and Richmond Districts. Filipinos 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 sizeable portion of the city's Vietnamese population along with businesses and restaurants, which is referred to as the city's Little Saigon. The principal Hispanic 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 constituted around 5% of San Francisco's population in 2020; their share of the city's population has since been decreasing since the 1970s. Most 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 the Mission District. Unlike many other Western cities, San Francisco has a substantial Irish American population. Drawn by the California Gold Rush, the Irish were one of the first leading White immigrant groups to arrive in California, settling in the city of San Francisco. The Irish historically settled in Irish Hill, which was razed after World War II. Despite this, San Francisco is still one of only three counties in the entire Western United States whose White population is plurality (20.6%) Irish. The city has long been home to a substantial Jewish community; in 2018 Jewish Americans 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 leading 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 along with the suburbs of nearby Marin County.

In 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. The largest religious groupings in San Francisco's metropolitan area are Christians (48%), followed by those of no religion (35%), Hindus (5%), Jews (3%), Buddhists (2%), Muslims (1%) and a range of other religions have smaller followings in a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center. In 2014, around 20% of residents in the area are Protestant, and 25% professing Roman Catholic beliefs. 10% of the residents in metropolitan San Francisco identify as agnostics, while 5% identify as atheists. San Francisco's official city-designated languages are English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Filipino, and Vietnamese. In 2010, 55% (411,728) of San Francisco residents spoke only English at home, while 19% (140,302) spoke a range of Chinese (mostly Taishanese and Cantonese), 12% (88,147) Spanish, 3% (25,767) Tagalog, and 2% (14,017) Russian. 45% (342,693) of San Francisco's population spoke a language at home other than English in total.