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San Francisco . San Francisco, California City and County of San Francisco San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands Flag of San Francisco, California Flag Official seal of San Francisco, California Nickname(s): The City; The City by the Bay; The Golden City; Fog City; San Fran; Saint Frank; Frisco (all 3 locally disparaged); The City that Knows How (past); Baghdad by the Bay (past); The Paris of the West (past); Location of San Francisco in California Location of San Francisco in California CSA San Jose San Francisco Oakland Metro San Francisco Oakland Hayward San Francisco (initials SF) (/s n fr n s sko /, Spanish for Saint Francis; Spanish: [san fran. Sis.ko]), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the place of birth of the United Nations. Located at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula, San Francisco is about 47.9 square miles (124 km2) in area, making it the smallest county and the only merged city-county inside the state of California. With a density of about 18,581 citizens per square mile (7,174 citizens per km2), San Francisco is the most densely settled large town/city (population greater than 200,000) in California and the second-most densely populated primary city in the United States after New York City. San Francisco is the fourth-most crowded city in California, after Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose, and the 13th-most crowded city in the United States with a census-estimated 2016 populace of 870,887. The town/city and its encircling areas are known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger OMB-designated San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth most crowded in the country with an estimated populace of 8.7 million. San Francisco was established on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and Mission San Francisco de Asis titled for St. San Francisco became a merged city-county in 1856. After three-quarters of the town/city was finished by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco (Spanish for Saint Francis) was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the "hippie" counterculture, the Sexual Revolution, the Peace Movement burgeoning from opposition to United States 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 in the United States. A prominent tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman's Wharf, and its Chinatown district. San Francisco is also the command posts of five primary banking establishments and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, Inc., Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, and Craigslist. It has a several nicknames, including "The City by the Bay", "Fog City", "San Fran", and "Frisco", as well as older ones like "The City that Knows How", "Baghdad by the Bay", "The Paris of the West", or simply "The City". As of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. See also: History of San Francisco and Timeline of San Francisco Mission San Francisco de Asis (Mission Dolores) The earliest archaeological evidence of human surroundingion of the territory of the town/city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. The Yelamu group of the Ohlone citizens resided in a several small villages when an overland Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portola, appeared on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay. Seven years later, on March 28, 1776, the Spanish established the Presidio of San Francisco, followed by a mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis (Mission Dolores), established by the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza. View of San Francisco 1846 47 Yerba Buena was retitled San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Even with its attractive locale as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. Francis Samuel Marryat, Hilltop of San Francisco, California, Looking toward the Bay, 1849. Port of San Francisco in 1851 With their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the populace from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches 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. Military assembled Fort Point at the Golden Gate and a fort on Alcatraz Island to secure the San Francisco Bay. Development of the Port of San Francisco and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the easterly U.S. The Presidio advanced into the most meaningful American military installation on the Pacific coast. By 1890, San Francisco's populace approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest town/city in the United States at the time. Around 1901, San Francisco was a primary city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a grow arts scene. The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900 1904. At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a primary earthquake hit San Francisco and northern California. San Francisco is gone." The influential San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association or SPUR was established in 1910 to address the character of housing after the earthquake. The earthquake hastened evolution of neighborhoods that railwaythe fire, including Pacific Heights, where many of the city's wealthy rebuilt their homes. In turn, the finished mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. Civil Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy was hired by San Francisco Mayor James Rolph as chief engineer for the town/city in September 1912 to supervise the assembly 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, of which the J, K, L, M, and N lines survive today, was pushed to culmination by O'Shaughnessy between 1915 and 1927. It was the O'Shaughnessy Dam, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct that would have the biggest effect on San Francisco. An abundant waterworks enabled San Francisco to precarious into the town/city it has turn into today. In ensuing years, the town/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 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 in the order given. San Francisco later jubilated 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 home it. The USS San Francisco steams under the Golden Gate Bridge in 1942, amid World War II. 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 officially ended the war with Japan. Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the assembly of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were assembled before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The onset of containerization made San Francisco's small piers obsolete, and cargo activeness moved to the larger Port of Oakland. The town/city began to lose industrialized jobs and turned to tourism as the most meaningful segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent momentous demographic change, as large segments of the white populace left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. From 1950 to 1980, the town/city lost over 10 percent of its population. Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America's counterculture. 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 citizens dead. In the 1970s, the town/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. 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 town/city to reclaim The Embarcadero as its historic downtown waterfront and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood. First was the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the San Francisco economy. The San Francisco Peninsula San Francisco is positioned on the West Coast of the United States at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes momentous stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay inside its boundaries. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson, is 928 feet (283 m) high and is capped with a 103-foot (31 m) tall cross assembled in 1934. Dominating this region is Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio and tv transmission tower. San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Main article: List of Landmarks and Historic Places in San Francisco Downtown San Francisco, seen from Twin Peaks, in October 2006. Downtown San Francisco, seen from Twin Peaks at dusk, in December 2009. San Francisco's Chinatown is the earliest and one of the biggest in North America. Main article: Neighborhoods in San Francisco See also: List of tallest buildings in San Francisco The historic center of San Francisco is the northeast quadrant of the town/city anchored by Market Street and the waterfront. Abutting Russian Hill and North Beach is San Francisco's Chinatown, the earliest Chinatown in North America. The South of Market, which was once San Francisco's industrialized core, has seen momentous redevelopment following the assembly of AT&T Park and an infusion of startup companies. Further evolution is taking place just to the south in Mission Bay area, a former barns yard, which now has a second ground of the University of California, San Francisco, and where the new Warriors arena will be built. The Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest building in San Francisco until 2016, when Salesforce Tower surpassed it East of the Mission is the Potrero Hill neighborhood, a mostly residentiary neighborhood that features sweeping views of downtown San Francisco. It has turn into North America's first and best known gay village, 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. San Francisco has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Koppen Csb) characteristic of California's coast, with moist mild winters and dry summers. San Francisco's weather is firmly 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. Fog is a regular feature of San Francisco summers. 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 region 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 easterly neighborhoods and amid the late summer and early fall, which is the warmest time of the year. Because of its sharp topography and maritime influences, San Francisco exhibits a multitude of distinct microclimates. They also protect neighborhoods directly to their east from the foggy and sometimes very cold and windy conditions experienced in the Sunset District; for those who live on the easterly side of the city, San Francisco is sunnier, with an average of 260 clear days, and only 105 cloudy days per year. Temperatures reach or exceed 80 F (27 C) on an average of only 21 and 23 days a year at downtown and San Francisco International Airport (SFO), in the order given. The dry reconstructionof 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 reconstructionof 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 rain averages 23.65 inches (601 mm). Variation in rain from year to year is high. In 2013 (a "La Nina" year), a record low 5.59 in (142 mm) of rainfall was recorded at downtown San Francisco, where records have been kept since 1849. Snowfall in the town/city is very rare, with only 10 calculable accumulations recorded since 1852, most recently in 1976 when up to 5 inches (130 mm) fell on Twin Peaks. San Francisco falls under the USDA 10a Plant Hardiness zone. Climate data for San Francisco (downtown), 1981 2010 normals, extremes 1849 present The 2010 United States Enumeration reported that San Francisco had a populace of 805,235. With a populace density of 17,160 per square mile (6,632/km2), San Francisco is the second-most densely populated primary American town/city behind only New York (among metros/cities greater than 200,000 population). San Francisco is the traditional focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area and forms part of the five-county San Francisco Oakland Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 4.6 million citizens . Enumeration Bureau estimates San Francisco's populace increased to 870,887 as of July 1, 2016. San Francisco has a minority-majority population, as non-Hispanic caucasians comprise less than half of the population, 41.9%, down from 92.5% in 1940. As of the 2010 census, the ethnic makeup and populace of San Francisco included: 390,387 Whites (48%), 267,915 Asians (33%), 48,870 African Americans (6%), and others. In 2010, inhabitants of Chinese ethnicity constituted the biggest single ethnic minority group in San Francisco at 21% of the population; the other Asian groups are Filipinos (5%) and Vietnamese (2%). The populace of Chinese lineage is most heavily concentrated in Chinatown, Sunset District, and Richmond District, whereas Filipinos are most concentrated in the Crocker-Amazon (which is adjoining with the Filipino improve of Daly City, which has one of the highest concentrations of Filipinos in North America), as well as in So - Ma. The Tenderloin District is home to a large portion of the city's Vietnamese populace as well as businesses and restaurants, which is known as the city's Little Saigon. San Francisco's African American populace has declined to 6% of the city's population. The percentage of African Americans in San Francisco is similar to that of California. The majority of the city's black populace reside inside the neighborhoods of Bayview-Hunters Point, and Visitacion Valley, and in the Fillmore District. Map of ethnic distribution in San Francisco Bay Area, 2010 U.S. As of 2010, 55% (411,728) of San Francisco inhabitants spoke English at home as a major language, 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. In total, 45% (342,693) of San Francisco's populace spoke a mother language other than English. Of all primary cities in the United States, San Francisco has the second-highest percentage of inhabitants with a college degree, behind only Seattle. Over 44% of grownups 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 46.7 square miles (121 km2). San Francisco has the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals of any of the 50 biggest U.S. Cities, at 15%. San Francisco also has the highest percentage of same-sex homeholds of any American county, with the Bay Area having a higher concentration than any other urbane area. San Francisco rates third of American metros/cities in median homehold income with a 2007 value of $65,519. Median family income is $81,136. An emigration of middle-class families has left the town/city with a lower proportion of children, 15%, than any other large American city. The city's poverty rate is 12%, lower than the nationwide average. Homelessness has been a chronic lured for San Francisco since the early 1970s. The town/city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants per capita of any primary U.S. See also: List of companies based in San Francisco San Francisco has a diversified service economy, with employment spread athwart a wide range of experienced services, including financial services, tourism, and (increasingly) high technology. In 2012, approximately 25% of workers were working in experienced company services; 16% in government services; 15% in leisure and hospitality; 11% in education and community care; and 9% in financial activities. In 2015, GDP in the five-county San Francisco urbane region was $431.7 billion. Additionally, in 2015 the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical region had a GDP of $758.5 billion, which would put it ahead of all but 16 countries. The impact 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, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was established in San Francisco and in the 1960s, assembled the landmark undivided high-rise building at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. With over 30 global financial establishments, six Fortune 500 companies, and a large support transit framework of experienced services including law, enhance relations, architecture and design San Francisco is designated as an Alpha(-) World City. In March 2014 it was ranked in 10th place among the top global financial centers. Since the 1990s, San Francisco's economy has diversified away from finance and tourism towards the burgeoning fields of high tech, biotechnology, and medical research. Technology jobs accounted for just 1 percent of San Francisco's economy in 1990, burgeoning to 4 percent in 2010 and an estimated 8 percent by the end of 2013. San Francisco became an epicenter of Internet start-up companies amid the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and the subsequent civil media boom of the late 2000s (decade). Since 2010, San Francisco proper has thriving an increasing share of venture capital investments as compared to close-by Silicon Valley, attracting 423 financings worth US$4.58 billion in 2013. In 2004, the town/city allowed a payroll tax exemption for biotechnology companies to foster expansion in the Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second ground and hospital of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Third at 1.8% (8,500+ citizens ) is California Pacific Medical Center, the biggest private-sector employer. Small businesses with severaler than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of town/city establishments, and the number of San Franciscans working by firms of more than 1,000 employees has declined by half since 1977. The expansion of nationwide big box and formula retail chains into the town/city has been made intentionally difficult by political and civic consensus. In an accomplishment 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 small-town economy, and the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods where formula retail establishments can set up shop, an accomplishment affirmed by San Francisco voters. However, by 2016, San Francisco was rated low by small businesses in a Business Friendliness Survey. cities, San Francisco once had a momentous manufacturing zone employing nearly 60,000 workers in 1969, but nearly all manufacturing left for cheaper locations by the 1980s. As of 2014, San Francisco has seen a small resurgence in manufacturing, with more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs athwart 500 companies, doubling since 2011. See also: Port of San Francisco It attracts the fifth-highest number of foreign tourists of any town/city in the United States and is one of the 100 most visited metros/cities worldwide. More than 18 million visitors appeared in San Francisco in 2014, injecting US$10.67 billion into the economy. With a large hotel transit framework and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center, San Francisco is a prominent destination for annual conventions and conferences. Some of the most prominent tourist attractions in San Francisco noted by the Travel Channel include the Golden Gate Bridge and Alamo Square Park, which is home to the famous "Painted Ladies". San Francisco also offers tourists cultural and unique eveninglife in its neighborhoods. The port presently uses Pier 35 to handle the 60 80 cruise ship calls and 200,000 passengers that come to San Francisco. Itineraries from San Francisco usually include round trip cruises to Alaska and Mexico. A heightened interest in conventioneering in San Francisco, marked by the establishment of meeting halls such as Yerba Buena, acted as a feeder into the small-town tourist economy and resulted in an increase in the hotel industry: "In 1959, the town/city had severaler 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 commodification of the Castro District has contributed to San Francisco's tourist economy. Main article: Culture of San Francisco See also: San Francisco in prominent culture Although the Financial District, Union Square, and Fisherman's Wharf are well-known around the world, San Francisco is also characterized by its various culturally rich streetscapes featuring mixed-use neighborhoods anchored around central commercial corridors to which inhabitants and visitors alike can walk. Because of these characteristics, San Francisco is ranked the second "most walkable" town/city in the United States by Walkscore.com. Many neighborhoods feature a mix of businesses, restaurants and venues that cater to both the daily needs of small-town inhabitants while also serving many visitors and tourists. According to a 2014 character of life survey of global cities, San Francisco has the highest character of living of any U.S. The global character that San Francisco has appreciateed since its beginning is continued today by large numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. With 39% of its inhabitants born overseas, San Francisco has various neighborhoods filled with businesses and civic establishments catering to new arrivals. With the arrival of the "beat" writers and artists of the 1950s and societal shifts culminating in the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury precinct amid the 1960s, San Francisco became a center of liberal activism and of the counterculture that arose at that time. San Francisco has not voted more than 20% for a Republican presidential or senatorial candidate since 1988. In 2007, the town/city period its Medicaid and other indigent medical programs into the "Healthy San Francisco" program, which subsidizes certain medical services for eligible residents. San Francisco also has had a very active surroundingal community. Starting with the beginning 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 our natural surrounding. The 1980 San Francisco Recycling Program was one of the earliest curbside recycling programs. The city's Go - Solar - SF incentive promotes solar installations and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is rolling out the Clean - Power - SF program to sell electricity from small-town renewable sources. SF Greasecycle is a program to recycle used cooking petroleum for conversion to biodiesel. Main article: LGBT culture in San Francisco The rainbow flag, motif of LGBT pride, originated in San Francisco; banners like this one decorate streets in The Castro. San Francisco has long had an LGBT-friendly history. The city's large gay populace has created and sustained a politically and culturally active improve over many decades, developing a powerful existence in San Francisco's civic life. One of the most prominent destinations for gay tourists internationally, the town/city hosts San Francisco Pride, one of the biggest and earliest pride parades. San Francisco Pride affairs have been held continuously since 1972. Main article: List of theatres in San Francisco San Francisco's War Memorial and Performing Arts Center hosts some of the most enduring performing-arts companies in the country. The War Memorial Opera House homes the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera business in North America as well as the San Francisco Ballet, while the San Francisco Symphony plays in Davies Symphony Hall. It is the second incarnation of the historic venue that attained 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. San Francisco has a large number of theaters and live performance venues. Other small-town winners of the Regional Theatre Tony Award include the San Francisco Mime Troupe. San Francisco theaters incessantly host pre-Broadway engagements and tryout runs, and some initial San Francisco productions have later moved to Broadway. Main article: List of exhibitions in San Francisco Bay Area, California San Francisco The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) homes 20th century and intact works of art. Main article: Sports in the San Francisco Bay Area Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants have played in San Francisco since moving from New York in 1958. In 2012, San Francisco was ranked #1 in a study that examined which U.S. The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL) were the longest-tenured primary experienced sports charter in the town/city until moving in 2013. The San Francisco Warriors played in the NBA from 1962 1971, before being retitled the Golden State Warriors before to the 1971 1972 season in an attempt to present the team as a representation of the whole state of California. The Warrior's stadium, Oracle Arena, is presently positioned in Oakland, California. They have won 4 championships, including their most recent in 2015. At the collegiate level, the San Francisco Dons compete in NCAA Division I. There is also the San Francisco State Gators, who compete in NCAA Division II. AT&T Park hosted the annual Fight Hunger Bowl college football game from 2002 through 2013 before it moved to Santa Clara. The Bay to Breakers footrace, held annually since 1912, is best known for colorful costumes and a celebratory improve spirit. The San Francisco Marathon attracts more than 21,000 participants. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon has, since 1980, thriving 2,000 top experienced and amateur triathletes for its annual race. The Olympic Club, established in 1860, is the earliest athletic club in the United States. San Francisco hosted the 2013 America's Cup yacht racing competition. With an ideal climate for outside activities, San Francisco has sizeable resources and opportunities for amateur and participatory sports and recreation. There are more than 200 miles (320 km) of bicycle paths, lanes and bike routes in the city. San Francisco inhabitants have often ranked among the fittest in the country. Golden Gate Park 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 prominent activities on San Francisco Bay, and the town/city maintains a yacht harbor in the Marina District. See also: List of parks in San Francisco Ocean Beach, San Francisco with a view of the Cliff House Several of San Francisco's parks and nearly all of its beaches form part of the county-wide Golden Gate National Recreation Area, one of the most visited units of the National Park fitness in the United States with over 13 million visitors a year. The National Park Service separately administers the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park a fleet of historic ships and waterfront property around Aquatic Park. Alamo Square is one of the most well known parks in the area, and is often a motif of San Francisco for its prominent location for film and pop culture. There are more than 220 parks maintained by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department. The biggest and best-known town/city park is Golden Gate Park, which stretches from the center of the town/city west to the Pacific Ocean. The large park is rich with cultural and natural attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, Japanese Tea Garden and San Francisco Botanical Garden. Lake Merced is a fresh-water lake surrounded by parkland and near the San Francisco Zoo, a city-owned park that homes more than 250 animal species, many of which are endangered. The only park managed by the California State Park fitness positioned principally in San Francisco, Candlestick Point was the state's first urban recreation area. Main articles: Government of San Francisco, Politics of San Francisco, and Mayors of San Francisco San Francisco officially known as the City and County of San Francisco is a merged city-county, a status it has held since the 1856 secession of what is now San Mateo County. It is the only such consolidation in California. The mayor is also the county executive, and the county Board of Supervisors acts as the town/city council. The government of San Francisco is a charter town/city and is constituted of two co-equal chapters. San Francisco City Hall San Francisco International Airport, though positioned in San Mateo County, is owned and directed by the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco also has a county jail complex positioned in San Mateo County, in an unincorporated region adjoining to San Bruno. San Francisco was also granted a perpetual leasehold over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed in Yosemite National Park by the Raker Act in 1913. San Francisco serves as the county-wide core for many arms of the federal agencycracy, including the U.S. The State of California uses San Francisco as the home of the state supreme court and other state agencies. The municipal budget for fiscal year 2015 16 was $8.99 billion, and is one of the biggest city budgets in the United States. The City of San Francisco spends more per resident than any town/city other than Washington D.C, over $10,000 in FY 2015-2016. The town/city employs around 27,000 workers. There were about 4,469 burglaries, 25,100 thefts, and 4,210 motor vehicle thefts. The Tenderloin region 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. According to the San Francisco Police Department, there were 59 murders in the town/city in 2016, an annual total that marked a 13.5% increase in the number of homicides (52) from 2015. Several street gangs operate in the city, including MS-13, the Surenos and Nortenos in the Mission District,. black street gangs familiar in other cities, including the Crips, have struggled to establish footholds in San Francisco, while police and prosecutors have been accused of liberally labeling young black males as gang members. Criminal gangs with shotcallers in China, including Triad groups such as the Wo Hop To, have been reported active in San Francisco. In 1977, an ongoing rivalry between two Chinese gangs led to a shooting attack at the Golden Dragon restaurant in Chinatown, which left 5 citizens dead and 11 wounded. The San Francisco Police Department was established in 1849. The portions of Golden Gate National Recreation Area positioned inside the city, including the Presidio and 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. The Lone Mountain Campus of the University of San Francisco. See also: List of universities and universities in San Francisco San Francisco State University Main Quad The University of California, San Francisco is the sole ground of the University of California fitness entirely dedicated to graduate education in community and biomedical sciences. 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 athwart San Francisco. The University of California, Hastings College of the Law, established in Civic Center in 1878, is the earliest law school in California and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution. San Francisco's two University of California establishments have recently formed an official affiliation in the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy. San Francisco State University is part of the California State University fitness and is positioned 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 chief facility in the Ingleside district, is one of the biggest two-year improve universities in the country. Founded in 1855, the University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit college located on Lone Mountain, is the earliest institution of college studies in San Francisco and one of the earliest universities established west of the Mississippi River. Golden Gate University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational college formed in 1901 and positioned in the Financial District. With an enrollment of 13,000 students, the Academy of Art University is the biggest institute of art and design in the nation. Founded in 1871, the San Francisco Art Institute is the earliest art school west of the Mississippi. The California College of the Arts, positioned north of Potrero Hill, has programs in architecture, fine arts, design, and writing. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the only autonomous music school on the West Coast, grants degrees in orchestral instruments, chamber music, composition, and conducting. See also: List of high schools in California San Francisco County Public schools are run by the San Francisco Unified School District as well as the State Board of Education for some charter schools. West of the Mississippi, and the lesser School of the Arts High School are two of San Francisco's magnet schools at the secondary level. Just under 30% of the city's school-age populace attends one of San Francisco's more than 100 private or parochial schools, compared to a 10% rate nationwide. Nearly 40 of those schools are Catholic schools managed by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Main article: Media in San Francisco San Francisco Chronicle Building The primary daily journal in San Francisco is the San Francisco Chronicle, which is presently Northern California's most widely circulated newspaper. The Chronicle is most famous for a former columnist, the late Herb Caen, whose daily musings thriving 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 no-charge daily tabloid, under new ownership. Sing Tao Daily claims to be the biggest of a several Chinese language dailies that serve the Bay Area. SF Weekly is the city's alternative weekly newspaper. San Francisco Magazine and 7x7 are primary glossy magazines about San Francisco. The nationwide newsmagazine Mother Jones is also based in San Francisco. The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth-largest TV market and the fourth-largest radio market in the U.S. CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Al Jazeera America, Russia Today, and CCTV America also have county-wide news agencys in San Francisco. The county-wide sports network, Comcast Sports - Net Bay Area and its sister station Comcast Sports - Net California, are both positioned in San Francisco. The Pac-12 Network is also based in San Francisco. KQED-FM is the most-listened-to National Public Radio partner in the country. Another small-town broadcaster, KPOO, is an autonomous, black owned and directed noncommercial airways broadcast established in 1971. CNET, established 1994, and Salon.com, 1995, are based in San Francisco. See also: Transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area Main article: List of streets in San Francisco Route 101 joins to the end of Interstate 80 and provides access to the south of the town/city along San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. State Route 1 also enters San Francisco from the north via the Golden Gate Bridge and bisects the town/city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, joining with 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 neighborhood. State Route 82 enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, and terminates shortly after that at its junction with 280. The Western Terminus of the historic transcontinental Lincoln Highway, the first road athwart America, is in San Francisco's Lincoln Park. See also: San Francisco Municipal Railway 32% of San Francisco inhabitants use enhance transit in daily commuting to work, ranking it first on the West Coast and third overall in the United States. The San Francisco Municipal Railway, known as Muni, is the major enhance transit fitness of San Francisco. BART, a county-wide Rapid Transit system, joins San Francisco with the East Bay through the underwater Transbay Tube. The line runs under Market Street to 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. Another Commuter Rail system, Caltrain, runs from San Francisco along the San Francisco Peninsula to San Jose. Historically, trains directed by Southern Pacific Lines ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles, via Palo Alto and San Jose. Amtrak California Thruway Motorcoach runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station athwart the Bay in Emeryville. Lines from Emeryville Station include the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin, California Zephyr, and Coast Starlight. San Francisco Bay Ferry operates from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Oakland, Alameda, Bay Farm Island, South San Francisco, and north to Vallejo in 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. San Francisco was an early adopter of carsharing in America. To accommodate the large amount of San Francisco people who commute to the Silicon Valley daily, companies like Google and Apple have begun to furnish private bus transit for their employees, from San Francisco locations to the tech start-up hotspot. San Francisco International Airport is the major airport of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Main article: San Francisco International Airport Although positioned 13 miles (21 km) south of downtown in unincorporated San Mateo County, San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. Geographically, Oakland Airport is approximately the same distance from downtown San Francisco as SFO, but due to its locale across San Francisco Bay, it is greater driving distance from San Francisco. Cycling is a prominent mode of transit in San Francisco. 75,000 inhabitants commute by bicycle per day. Bay Area Bike Share launched in August 2013 with 700 bikes in downtown San Francisco and chose metros/cities south to San Jose. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Bay Area Air Quality Management District are responsible for the operation with management provided by Alta Bicycle Share. The fitness will be period in the future. Pedestrian traffic is a primary mode of transport. In 2015, Walk Score ranked San Francisco the second-most walkable town/city in the United States. San Francisco has decidedly higher rates of pedestrian and bicyclist traffic deaths than the United States on average. Cycling is burgeoning in San Francisco. Annual bicycle counts conducted by the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) in 2010 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. Since 2002, improvements in cycling transit framework in recent years, including additional bike lanes and parking racks, have made cycling in San Francisco safer and more convenient. Since 2006, San Francisco has received a Bicycle Friendly Community status of "Gold" from the League of American Bicyclists. Main article: List of citizens from San Francisco Main articles: Sister metros/cities of San Francisco, California and List of diplomatic missions in San Francisco San Francisco participates in the Sister Cities program. A total of 41 consulates general and 23 honorary consulates have offices in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco Bay Area portal Architecture of San Francisco List of metros/cities and suburbs in the San Francisco Bay Area Ships lost in San Francisco San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. Some tourists refer to San Francisco as "Frisco." San Francisco State University. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco Water. "San Francisco: Government". San Francisco was incorporated as a City on April 15th, 1850 by act of the Legislature. City & County of San Francisco. City and County of San Francisco. "Quick - Facts: San Francisco County, California". "Don't Call It Frisco: The History of San Francisco's Nicknames". "San Francisco the place of birth of the United Nations". San Francisco Chronicle. "Board of Supervisors Does San Francisco have a City Council?". "Remembering the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake". "Port of Embarkation Essay World War II in the San Francisco Bay Area". "Visitors: San Francisco Historical Information". City and County of San Francisco. The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco (July 16, 2004). The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. It became an iconic motif of San Francisco, and is still a staple of town/city life today.Tamony, Peter (October 1973). "San Francisco's First Brick Building". The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide. "Crews Unearth Shipwreck on San Francisco Condo Project". National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. Construction of the Pacific Railroad was partially (albeit reluctantly) funded by the City and County of San Francisco Pacific Railroad Bond copy under the provisions of "An Act to Authorize the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco to take and subscribe One Million Dollars to the Capital Stock of the Western Pacific Rail Road Company and the Central Pacific Rail Road Company of California and to furnish for the payment of the same and other matters relating thereto." Paxson, Treasurer, of the City and County of San Francisco" 25 Cal 635) and 1865 ("The People ex rel The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California vs. The Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, and Wilhelm Lowey, Clerk" 27 Cal 655) National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. "The Black Death in Chinatown: Plague and Politics in San Francisco 1900 1904". "Jack London Writes of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire". National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. San Francisco's Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights. San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing. National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. "Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco M.M. "San Francisco Gold Rush Banking 1849". The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. The final, insurmountable diminish in San Francisco's shipping activeness was heralded in 1958 by the departure of the first containerized freighter from San Francisco Bay. San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. During the 1960s and 1970s San Francisco's historic maritime trade relocated to Oakland. San Francisco remained a center for company and experienced services (such as consulting, law, accounting and finance) and also successfully advanced its tourism sector, which became the dominant local industry. "San Francisco Planning Department Enumeration Data Analysis". San Francisco State University. San Francisco Chronicle. National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. "San Francisco History: The 1970s and 1980s: Gay Rights". Destinations: San Francisco. National trust guide- San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "City and County of San Francisco: An Overview of San Francisco's Recent Economic Performance" (PDF). Another positive trend for the future is San Francisco's highly entrepreneurial, flexible and innovative economy...San Francisco's very high reliance on small company and self-employment is typical of other dynamic, fast-growing, high-technology areas athwart the country. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "What San Francisco didn't learn from the '06 quake". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "The Lure of the Creeks Buried Beneath San Francisco's Streets". Streetsblog San Francisco. The Official San Francisco Chinatown Website. Depicting Otherness: Images of San Francisco's Chinatown. San Francisco Days San Francisco Chronicle. The San Francisco Chronicle. SFGate San Francisco Neighborhood Guide. The San Francisco Chronicle. Climate of San Francisco: Narrative Description Golden Gate Weather Services. Climate of San Francisco: Snowfall Golden Gate Weather Services. "Blizzard of awesome: The San Francisco snow flurry of 1976". San Francisco Chronicle. "San Francisco Bay Area / Monterey". "Station Name: CA SAN FRANCISCO DWTN". "2010 Enumeration Interactive Population Search: CA San Francisco city". "Quick - Facts: San Francisco County, California". "San Francisco (city), California". "San Francisco City and County". "San Francisco County, California". "New measure rates San Francisco the 'smartest' U.S. "Families Struggle To Stay: Why Families are Leaving San Francisco and What Can Be Done" (PDF). "San Francisco Program Combats Homelessness with Innovation". "San Francisco's summer of urine and drug-addicted homeless". San Francisco Gate. The San Francisco Chronicle. "Industry Employment Data for San Francisco County". San Francisco in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City by the Bay. "San Francisco: Economy". "Biotech Jobs Germinate as San Francisco Diversifies Economy". "Forecasting San Francisco's Economic Fortunes". San Francisco Chronicle. "As Bay Area Investment Shifts North, Institutional Venture Partners Opens San Francisco Office". "San Francisco's urban tech boom". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Business Times. San Francisco Center for Economic Development. Office of the Mayor, City and County of San Francisco. City and County of San Francisco, California Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, for the Year ended June 30, 2013. "San Francisco is gateway town/city for immigrants and Silicon Valley Technology". "An Overview of San Francisco's Recent Economic Performance Executive Summary" (PDF). San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "Proposition G: Limitations on Formula Retail Stores, City of San Francisco". "Made in San Francisco: Manufacturing a comeback". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Travel Association (Press release). "San Francisco Visitor Industry Statistics". San Francisco Travel Association. "Alcatraz Island : Explore Sensational San Francisco : Travel - Channel.com". San Francisco Travel. City for sale: The transformation of San Francisco. "San Francisco's Castro district: from gay liberation to tourist destination". "San Francisco by the Numbers: Planning After the 2000 Census". San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. "San Francisco's Home Prices Remain Among the Highest in U.S.". San Francisco magazine. San Francisco Chronicle. "San Francisco's median rent hits a ridiculous $4,225". "San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade Embroiled in Controversy". Reform Law Could Curb Healthy San Francisco's Enrollment by Up to 60% California Healthline. "San Francisco's Latest Innovation: Universal Health Care", by Laura A. Office of the Mayor, San Francisco. The San Francisco Opera is second in size only to New York City's Metropolitan Opera "Stage Left: San Francisco's Theater History. Raises Curtain For Broadway Hits" San Francisco Business Times, April 3, 2005 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "SAN FRANCISCO / 49ers say they are moving to Santa Clara". San Francisco Chronicle. "San Francisco mayor: 49ers move to Santa Clara all but assured". "Athletics and Sports San Francisco State University Bulletin 2013 2014". "San Francisco chose to host America's Cup". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco Zoo. "Board of Supervisors Does San Francisco have a City Council?". City and County of San Francisco, Board of Supervisors. The San Francisco Chronicle. "1 in 3 San Francisco employees earned $100,000". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "San Francisco crime rates and statistics". San Francisco Chronicle. "SAN FRANCISCO / Sureno gang's threat burgeoning in Bay Area / Widow's apartment is at heart of group's Mission District turf". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Police Department. "San Francisco Business Information: Largest Employers in San Francisco". San Francisco Business Times Book of Lists, 2007. San Francisco Center for Economic Development. San Francisco Business Times. University of California, San Francisco. "City College of San Francisco Fact Sheet" (PDF). City College of San Francisco. "University of San Francisco Fact Book and Almanac 2007" (PDF). University of San Francisco. "Oakland & San Francisco Campuses". San Francisco Unified School District. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. "The San Francisco Examiner, 1887 2000". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency. San Francisco Chronicle. "Report on San Francisco's Cable Cars" (PDF). San Francisco Beautiful. "San Francisco Bay Ferry". "Google bus blocked in San Francisco protest vs gentrification". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco International Airport. City of San Francisco. San Francisco Chronicle. "City of San Francisco 2010 Bicycle Count Report" (PDF). San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, 2010, p. "2008 San Francisco State of Cycling Report" (PDF). San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. 2012 San Francisco State of Cycling Report (PDF) (Report). San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. "San Francisco Sister Cities". "REGISTER OF FOREIGN CONSULATES IN SAN FRANCISCO" (PDF). San Francisco Almanac: Everything you want to know about the city. San Francisco's Richmond District. National trust guide San Francisco: America's guide for architecture and history travelers. The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld. High Steel: Building the Bridges Across San Francisco Bay. Literary San Francisco: A pictorial history from its beginnings to the present day. City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco. San Francisco, 1846 1856: From Hamlet to City. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press, 2010). The San Francisco Earthquake. Winfield, P.H., The Charter of San Francisco (The fortnightly review Vol. San Francisco (article) (1870) The Overland Monthly, January 1870 Vol. San Francisco: A. Bay Watched How San Francisco's New Entrepreneurial Culture is Changing the Country (article) (October 2013), Nathan Heller, The New Yorker San Francisco Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco San Francisco San Mateo County San Leandro City and County of San Francisco Articles relating to the City and County of San Francisco Categories: San Francisco - 1850 establishments in California - California counties - Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area - Consolidated city-counties in the United States - Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area - County seats in California - Hudson's Bay Company trading posts - Incorporated metros/cities and suburbs in California - Populated coastal places in California - Populated places established in 1776 - Port metros/cities and suburbs of the West Coast of the United States - Spanish mission settlements in North America