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Place Name
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San Francisco
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Place Status (Type)
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city
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Capital Of
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San Francisco County
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Population
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723,959 (1990)
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Location
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San Francisco County, California (CA), United States, North America
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Latitude
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37°48'N
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Longitude
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122°33'W
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San Francisco
, city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with and
 San Francisco co., W Calif., on the N end of a peninsula bet.
the Pacific Ocean (W) and San Francisco Bay (E), separated from Marin
Peninsula (Marin co.) by Golden Gate Strait,
6 mi/9.7 km W of downtown Oakland; 37°48'N
122°33'W. The city is the heart of the San Francisco Bay region and
with Oakland and San Jose comprise the 4th-largest metropolitan area in
the U.S. Mfg. (printing and publishing, food processing, mining
services, apparel, textile processing, petroleum refining, computers,
chemicals, communications equip., machinery). Tourism is the economic
mainstay, with service industries supporting the large number of annual
visitors. For most of its history, San Francisco has been the financial
center of the West Coast, but since the early 1970s the city has had to
compete with Los Angeles for this distinction. Finance remains one of
the most important activities; the city is still hq. to 3 of the
country's largest commercial banks as well as a Federal Reserve bank
and the Pacific Stock Exchange. More than 600 insurance companies are
based here. San Francisco is also the marketplace for a large agr. and
mining region and the focus of many transportation routes. Along with
the busy port of Richmond across the bay to NE, and Oakland Harbor (San
Leandro Bay) to E, San Francisco and the Bay Area form one of the
largest ports on the West Coast and are a major center of trade with
East Asia, Australia, S. Amer., Mexico, Canada, Hawaii (HI), and Alaska.
Although mfg. in San Francisco has declined, the clothing and
food-processing industries remain important. Tourism is also very
important. The area's transportation needs are served by an extensive
highway and RR network. The interurban Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
system began operating in 1972 bet. San Francisco and East Bay
communities. The city was founded in 1776, when a Span. presidio and a
mission were established at a location chosen by Juan Bautista de Anza.
The little settlement called Yerba Buena was still a village when the
Mex.-Amer. War broke out and a naval force under Commodore John D.
Sloat took it (1846) in the name of the U.S. It was then renamed San
Francisco. When gold was discovered in Calif. in 1848, San Francisco
had a pop. of c.800; 2 years later it was inc. (1850) with a pop. of
c.25,000. The rush of gold seekers, adventurers, and settlers brought a
period of lawlessness, when the Barbary Coast wharf dist.
flourished. The city took on a cosmopolitan air, with newcomers
arriving from all over the world. In this period the 1st Chinese
settled in the city, and San Francisco's legendary Chinatown is among
the largest communities of Chinese in the U.S. In the years after the
gold rush, San Francisco continued to grow as Calif. became linked
overland with the East, by the pony express in 1860 and by the
transcontinental RR in 1869. On the morning of April 18, 1906, the
great San Andreas fault, which extends up and down the Calif. coast, at
this point lying submerged just W of the city's Pacific coast, shifted
violently, and San Francisco was shaken by an earthquake which,
together with the sweeping 3-day fire that followed, all but destroyed
the city. Earthquakes have since continued to plague the city and its
environs; in Oct. 1989, a severe earthquake hit the Bay Area, wreaking
most damage on Oakland, the Bay Bridge, and local highways. The opening
of the Panama Canal, a boon to the city's trade, was celebrated by the
Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. The city was connected to Oakland
(E) by the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936
(Interstate 80), and to Marin co. (N) by the spectacular Golden Gate Bridge (U.S. Highway 101) in 1937. By the time of the Golden
Gate Internatl. Exposition (1939-1940) the whole Bay Area was heavily
industrialized; it had become the leading commercial center of the West
Coast. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply
point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. The UN
Charter (1945) was drafted at San Francisco, and the Jap. Peace Treaty
(1951) was signed here. San Francisco's natural beauty and mild
climate make it attractive as a residential city. It is split bet. very
wealthy sects., and many areas of urban impoverishment; the latter have
increased since the 1970s. Among the more well-known contemporary
neighborhoods are Haight-Ashbury, famous in the 1960s and 1970s for its
youth (“flower children”), music, and drug cultures; and a large
homosexual community that has principally grown around Castro St. In
1978, George Moscone, the city's mayor, and Harvey Milk, the city
supervisor, both proponents of gay rights, were assassinated at city
offices. The city is renowned for its all-encompassing fogs;
soaring bridges; cable cars (Cable Car Barn and Mus. on Washington
St.); busy Market St., with its department stores and office
bldgs.; the Embarcadero, crowded with docks, ships, and cargoes;
Fisherman's Wharf, with its fishing fleet, seafood restaurants, and
the center of the city's seafood industry; Chinatown, with its Asian
architecture, tearooms, and temples; Telegraph Hill; Russian Hill; and
Nob Hill, a neighborhood of millionaires. Other points of interest are
Mission Dolores (1782; initially called San Francisco de Asis);
many old mansions built by RR and mining kings; Golden Gate Park in W,
where the Calif. Acad. of Sciences has 2 natural history museums, an
aquarium, and a planetarium; the Cliff House and Palace of
the Legion of Honors art mus. on Point Lobos, overlooking the Pacific
and offshore rocks, 100 ft/30 m,
habitated by sea lions; the San Francisco Zoological Gardens; and the
civic center, with a distinctive Renaissance-style city hall, a public
lib., and the municipally owned opera house, where performances of the
symphony orchestra and ballet and opera companies are held. Other art
museums include the San Francisco Mus. of Art, the M. H. De Young
Memorial Mus., and the Asian Art Mus. Institutions of higher learning
in the city include San Francisco State Univ., the Univ. of San
Francisco, the Hastings Col. of Law, the Univ. of Calif., San
Francisco, Lone Mountain Col. (formerly San Francisco Col. for Women),
and several theological seminaries and community cols., such as the
City Col. of San Francisco. The Presidio of San Francisco, the largest
(1,542 acres/624 hectares) military encampment within the
confines of an Amer. city, was the hq. of the Sixth U.S. Army, as well
as the site of Letterman General Hosp.; it was decommissioned in 1994,
and turned over to the Natl. Park Service as part of Golden Gate Natl.
Recreation Area. Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard (closed) in SE.
Treasure Isl. Naval Air Station, on Treasure and Yerba Buena isls.
(linked by land), crossed on S by Bay Bridge. San Francisco Internatl.
Airport to S, on San Francisco Bay at San Bruno; Metro Oakland
Internatl. Airport to E, at Oakland. Candlestick Park baseball stadium
(1960) in SE. Cow Palace convention center, site of 1964 Republican
Convention, immediately to S in Daly City. Farallon Isl. Natl. Wildlife
Refuge off W coast. City includes Alcatraz Isl. to N, with
prison (closed). Part of Golden Gate Natl. Recreation Area is W and N,
including Alcatraz Isl., extends into Marin co; Fort Point Natl.
Historical Site in N, E of Golden Gate Bridge.
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