San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the
leading financial and cultural center of Northern
California and the San Francisco
Bay Area.
The only consolidated
city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of
about 46.9 square miles (121 km2) on the northern end of
the San Francisco
Peninsula, giving it a density of about 17,179 people per square
mile (6,632 people per km2). It is the most densely settled large
city (population greater than 200,000) in the state of California and the second-most densely populated major city in the United
States after New York City. San
Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 14th most
populous city in the United States, with a population of
805,235 as of the 2010 Census.
The city is also the financial and cultural hub of the larger San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area, with a
population of 7.6 million.
San Francisco (Spanish for "Saint
Francis") was founded on June 29, 1776, whencolonists
from Spain established a fort at
the Golden Gate and a mission named
for St. Francis
of Assisi a few miles away. The California
Gold Rush of 1849 propelled the city into a period of rapid
growth, increasing the population in one year from 1,000 to 25,000, and
thus transforming it into the largest city on theWest Coast at
the time.
After three-quarters of the city was destroyed
by the 1906
earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting
the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later.
During World War II,
San Francisco was the port of embarkation for
service members shipping out to the Pacific
Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen,
massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, and other factors led to the Summer of Loveand the gay rights movement,
cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal
activism in the United States. Among major U.S. cities, the city has
the largest percentage of gay, lesbian and bisexual residents, at 15.4%.
Today, San Francisco is one of the top tourist
destinations in the world,ranking 35th out of the 100 most visited cities
worldwide, and is renowned for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix
of architecture, and landmarks including the Golden Gate
Bridge, cable cars, Alcatraz Island and itsformer prison,
and its Chinatown.
The city is also a primary banking and finance
center, and more than 30 international financial institutions are based
there, helping to make San Francisco rank 18th in the world's top producing
cities, and 12th place in
the top twenty global financial centers.
