San Francisco travel guide — San Francisco tourism and travel information

San Francisco travel guide

about San Francisco

The City and County of San Francisco (population 776,773), the fourth-largest city in the state of California, United States, is a consolidated city-county situated at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula that forms San Francisco Bay.

The city is the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area whose total population is about 7 million.

San Francisco geography

San Francisco lies near the San Andreas Fault; a major source of earthquake activity in California. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, is mentioned above. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1851, 1858, 1865, and 1868. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 which also did significant damage to parts of the city, is also famous for having interrupted a World Series baseball game between the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

The threat of another major earthquake like the 1906 one plays a major role in the city's infrastructure development. New buildings must be built to very high structural standards, while many dollars must be spent to retrofit the city's older buildings and bridges.

San Francisco is famous for its hills and the streets which run straight up and down them. Three of San Francisco's notable hill neighborhoods are Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill, all located in or near the downtown area.

Near the geographic center of the city and away from the downtown area, are a series of less populated hills. Dominating this area is Mount Sutro, which is the site of Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio transmission tower, that is a well known landmark to city residents. Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, which are a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points.

Not to be missed are the beautiful homes and area of the city known as Pacific Heights. San Francisco is also famous for its cable cars (narrow gauge, 1067 mm (3'6")), which were designed to carry residents up those steep hills. It is still possible to take a cable car ride up and down Nob and Russian Hills. San Francisco's cable cars are the only mobile United States National Monument. Coit Tower, a notable landmark dedicated to San Francisco's firefighters, is located at the top of Telegraph Hill.

Surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's climate is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. The weather is remarkably mild all year round, with a so-called Mediterranean climate characterized by cool, foggy summers and relatively warm winters; average daily high temperatures in the summer typically range from the upper 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit, while in the winter it virtually never reaches freezing. Rain in the summer is extremely rare, but winters can often be very rainy. Snow is virtually unheard of. The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the city is particularly cold year round. The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland mean that San Francisco's western half is often shrouded in fog during the months of July and August. Thus, the summer temperatures are significantly lower in San Francisco than in other parts of inland California. The fog is less pronounced during the month of September, which is generally the warmest, most summer-like month of the year.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city and county has a total area of 600.7 km² (231.9 mi²). 120.9 km² (46.7 mi²) of it is land and 479.7 km² (185.2 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 79.86% water. The city itself is often reputed to be roughly a seven mile by seven mile square, but in fact it is slightly smaller, 46.7 mi².

San Francisco history

European visitors to the Bay Area were preceded 10,000 to 20,000 years earlier by native people indigenous to the area. These people, later called the Ohlone (a Miwok Indian word meaning "western people"), lived in the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay.

European discovery and exploration of the San Francisco Bay Area began in 1542 and culminated with the mapping of the bay in 1775. A Spanish party led by Juan Bautista de Anza arrived on March 28, 1776 and established the sites for the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asis (named for Saint Francis of Assisi and now popularly known as "Mission Dolores"). The area first began to develop as a city under the name of Yerba Buena in 1822, when what is now the downtown area was first settled by William Richardson, an English whaler.

Yerba Buena remained a small town until the Mexican-American War broke out and a naval force under Commodore John D. Sloat took it in 1846 in the name of the United States. It was then renamed "San Francisco" on 30 January 1847.

The California gold rush starting in 1848 led to a large growth in population, including considerable immigration. Between January 1848 and December 1849, the population of San Francisco increased from 1,000 to 25,000. The Chinatown district of the city is still one of the largest in the country. Many businesses started at that time to service the growing population are still present today, notably Levi Strauss clothing, Ghirardelli chocolate, and Wells Fargo bank.

Like many mining towns, the political situation in early San Francisco was chaotic. This was exacerbated by squabbling in the United States Senate, where the Compromise of 1850 was igniting a fierce fight over slavery. Disgusted by increasing corruption and crime, a group of San Franciscans formed a Committee of Vigilance in 1851, and again in 1856. This military government exiled many citizens, executed a few, and forced several elected officials to resign. The Committee of Vigilance relinquished power both times after it decided the city had been 'cleaned up'.

San Francisco became the USA's largest city west of those on the Mississippi River.

San Francisco County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. Parts of the county were given to San Mateo County in 1856.

Founded in 1855, The University of San Francisco was one of the first universities in the West. The University will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2005. Located near Turk and Masonic the campus can be attracting students from around the world.

The most colorful figure of late 19th century San Francisco was "Emperor" Joshua A. Norton.

On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake struck the city. This was estimated by modern scientists to have reached 8.25 on the Richter scale. The fires that followed were even more destructive, burning out of control for days and destroying the vast majority of the buildings in the city. Hundreds of residents were killed (some say thousands actually died), but the majority of the population escaped serious physical harm. (The 1936 movie San Francisco is set in the midst of these events.) Rebuilding of the city began almost immediately.

In 1915, the city hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, officially to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. On July 22, 1916 a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. The United Nations Charter was drafted at San Francisco in 1945.

During the early 1950s, Caltrans commenced an aggressive freeway construction program in the Bay Area. However, Caltrans soon encountered strong resistance in San Francisco, for the city's high population density meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city. Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since. Today, San Francisco has a statewide reputation for traffic congestion second only to Los Angeles.

San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of beatnik literature. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie culture. Thousands of young people poured into the Haight-Ashbury district of the city during 1967, which was known as the Summer of Love. At this time, the "San Francisco sound" emerged as an influential force in rock music, with such acts as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead achieving international prominence, blurring the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions. The Church Of Satan was founded and made its headquarters here in 1966. During the 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American--and international--rave scene. The city was the first to host the Love Parade outside its birthplace of Berlin, Germany in 2004.

In the 1970s, large numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco's Castro district. Tensions arose in the city over the cultural changes wrought by this migration, and these tensions led to tragedy in 1978 when a conservative member of the Board of Supervisors, Dan White, murdered a gay Supervisor, Harvey Milk and the city's mayor George Moscone on November 27. Today, the gay population of the city is estimated to be at about 15%, and gays remain an important force in the city's politics.

During the 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of factors that were affecting the country at large combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and forgiving policies: economic and social changes, the popularity of new addictive drugs, and the wide dispersal of Vietnam veterans are often cited as reasons for the growth of the problem. Mayor Art Agnos(1988-92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this lenient policy led to his being replaced by Frank Jordan in 1992. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. His successor, Willie Brown, was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term.

During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, large numbers of young entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by hordes of marketing and sales professionals, and changed the economic landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. The rising rents forced many people and businesses to leave, and this caused considerable tension in the city's politics. The resulting backlash resulted in a progressive majority winning control of the Board of Supervisors in the 2000 election.

By 2001, the boom was over, and many of the dot com people left in search of the next opportunity. SoMa, where many dot com companies were located, had been bustling and crowded with nearly no vacancies, but by 2002 was a virtual wasteland of empty offices and for rent signs.

In November of 2002, three off-duty police officers (one the son of the assistant chief) reportedly assaulted two civilians over a bag of steak fajitas. The resulting scandal was dubbed "Fajitagate" after it was alleged that high-ranking officers within the Police Department had tried to cover up the incident. Though top officials were formally indicted, they were soon exonerated, but with considerable damage to their reputations, and having brought the city nationwide ridicule.

The 2003 mayoral election of Matt Gonzalez versus Gavin Newsom was notable in that it was between a candidate of the progressive left and a moderate liberal, conservative candidates having had a hard time in the city. The newly elected Mayor Newsom, who won by a close margin (thanks in part to almost unanimous support by the city's Republican voters), burst onto national political scene, when in defiance of state law, he led San Francisco to become the first city in the U.S. to issue same-sex marriage licenses in February, 2004. Newsom also helped enact a strong new homeless policy, "Care Not Cash," in which the checks that homeless people previously received were replaced with vouchers for housing. This policy appears to be having some effect; demand for the vouchers is much weaker compared to the previous payment system.

Near cities to San Francisco

• Daly City travel guide 13 km
• Oakland travel guide 13 km
• Berkeley travel guide 16 km
• Richmond travel guide 18 km
• San Rafael travel guide 23 km
• Moraga travel guide 26 km
• San Mateo travel guide 26 km
• Vallejo travel guide 38 km
• Concord travel guide 40 km
• Palo Alto travel guide 44 km

Near webcams to San Francisco

• San Francisco webcam 0 km
• KPIX - TV5 City Cam webcam 0 km
• San Francisco - CityCam webcam 0 km
• Fisherman's Wharf webcam 1.9 km
• San Francisco - Embarcadero Skydeck webcam 1.9 km
• San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge webcam 1.9 km
• San Francisco - Skycam webcam 1.9 km
• San Francisco - Golden Gate webcam 1.9 km
• San Francisco - Coit Tower webcam 2.4 km
• Alcatraz webcam 3.7 km

back to top

San Francisco travel services

cheap flights to San Francisco

• book cheap flights to San Francisco »
• book cheap flights to USA »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of four main cheap airline tickets and cheap flights online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap airline tickets San Francisco, cheap flights San Francisco, also available cheap airline tickets to USA and to the whole world. Up to date cheap flights San Francisco deals also available.

cheap San Francisco hotels

• book cheap hotels to San Francisco »
• book cheap hotels to USA »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main cheap hotels and accommodation online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap hotels in San Francisco, USA hotel guide and cheap hotels and accommodation in lot of other world-wide destinations. Up to date cheap San Francisco hotel deals and discount accommodation tips also available.

cheap San Francisco vacations

• book San Francisco vacations »
• book USA vacations »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main cheap vacations online booking systems. We are happy to offer cheap vacations in San Francisco, USA vacation rentals and cheap vacations in lot of other destinations world-wide. Up to date San Francisco vacation deals also available.

cheap car rentals in San Francisco

• book cheap car rental in San Francisco »
• book cheap car rentals in USA »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of main car rentals online booking systems. We are happy to offer car rentals in San Francisco, car hire in USA and cheap car rental in lot other world-wide destinations. Up to date cheap San Francisco car hire deals also available.

San Francisco travel insurance

• San Francisco cheap travel insurance »
• cheap travel insurance for USA »

City Travel Guide is exclusive partner of Essential Travel Ltd., leading online travel insurance company, we can offer you health travel insurance for San Francisco, accident health San Francisco travel insurance, all using our online San Francisco travel insurance form. We also offer travel insurance for other cities in USA. This offer is available for UK residents only.

San Francisco real estate

• San Francisco real estate guide »
• real estate listings in USA »

City Travel Guide comes with San Francisco real estate guide with several tips on home valuation, realtors comparison, secrets on finding the "right" home, loans guide and other helpful real estate advices. Our partners also maintain San Francisco property for sale and rental listings, real estate laws and reviews. We will try to help you with buying property in USA, choosing real estate agents, property finders, relocation help, and information for English speakers wanting to buy real estate in San Francisco.

back to top

San Francisco travel books

San Francisco travel guide books

• San Francisco travel guide books »
• USA travel guide books »

San Francisco maps and atlases

• San Francisco maps and atlases »
• USA maps and atlases »

back to top