San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.
San Francisco
California, United States
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External Websites U-S-History.com - History of San Francisco, California Official Tourism Site of San Francisco, California, United States Official Site of City and County of San Francisco, California, United States Britannica Websites Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. San Francisco - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11) San Francisco - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) Also known as: Frisco Written by Kenneth Lamott Novelist and journalist. Author of Anti-California and numerous other books and magazine articles. Kenneth Lamott , Barnaby Conrad Artist-author Barnaby Conrad was born in San Francisco, California, in 1922. He graduated from Taft preparatory school in Connecticut, attended the Univerity of North Carolina, where he was captain of... Barnaby Conrad •All Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they he extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Sep 3, 2025 • Article History Top Questions Where is San Francisco located? What is San Francisco known for? Why is the Golden Gate Bridge an important symbol of San Francisco? What is the historical significance of Alcatraz Island? How do the famous San Francisco cable cars operate? What was the impact of the 1906 earthquake on San Francisco? How did the California Gold Rush contribute to San Francisco's growth? News • Cat in San Francisco euthanized after latest bird flu infection tied to raw pet food • Sep. 3, 2025, 10:29 PM ET (AP) President Donald Trump's policies spark protests in multiple US cities on Labor Day • Sep. 1, 2025, 8:22 PM ET (AP) Trump suggests more US cities need National Guard but crime stats tell a different story • Aug. 29, 2025, 11:07 AM ET (AP) Philadelphia's mass transit cuts foreshadow possible similar moves by other agencies across US • Aug. 25, 2025, 6:25 PM ET (AP) Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over ‘sanctuary’ policies • Aug. 22, 2025, 10:02 PM ET (AP)
San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, city and port, coextensive with San Francisco county, northern California, U.S., located on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. It is a cultural and financial centre of the western United States and one of the country’s most cosmopolitan cities. Area 46 square miles (120 square km). Pop. (2010) 805,235; San Francisco–San Mateo–Redwood City Metro Division, 1,776,095; San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont Metro Area, 4,335,391; (2020) 873,965; San Francisco–San Mateo–Redwood City Metro Division, 1,638,407; San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley Metro Area, 4,749,008.
Character of the city
South San FranciscoSouth San Francisco, California.San Francisco holds a secure place in the United States’ romantic dream of itself—a cool, elegant, handsome, worldly seaport whose steep streets offer breathtaking views of one of the world’s greatest bays. According to the dream, San Franciscans are sophisticates whose lives hold full measures of such civilized pleasures as music, art, and good food. Their children are to be pitied, for, as the wife of publishing magnate Nelson Doubleday once said, “They will probably grow up thinking all cities are so wonderful.” To San Franciscans their city is a magical place, almost an island, sed by its location and history from the sprawl and monotony that afflicts so much of urban California.
Since World War II, however, San Francisco has had to face the stark realities of urban life: congestion, air and water pollution, violence and vandalism, and the general decay of the inner city. San Francisco’s makeup has been changing as families, mainly white and middle-class, he moved to its suburbs, leing the city to a population that, viewed statistically, tends to be older and to he fewer married people. Now more than one of every two San Franciscans is “nonwhite”—in this case African American, East Asian, Filipino, Samoan, Vietnamese, Latin American, or Native American. Their dreams increasingly demand a realization that has little to do with the romantic dream of San Francisco. But both the dreams and the realities are important, for they are interwoven in the fabric of the city that might be called Paradox-by-the-Bay.
Although San Franciscans complain of the congestion, homelessness, and high cost of living that plague the city and talk endlessly of the good old days, the majority still think of San Francisco the way poet George Sterling did, as “the cool grey city of love,” one of America’s most attractive, colourful, and distinctive places to live.