a city on the Pacific coast of the USA, in California. An important US transportation, commercial, industrial, financial, and cultural center. San Francisco is situated at the tip of a narrow, hilly peninsula; it overlooks the Pacific Ocean on the west and San Francisco Bay on the east and north. The Golden Gate strait connects the bay and the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco proper covers 115.5 sq km and has a population of 681,000 (1974; 775,000 in 1950); the entire metropolitan area, including Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Santa Clara, and Richmond, has a population of 3.7 million (1950, 2.1 million). In the San Francisco metropolitan area, 727,500 persons are economically active (1973), including 27 percent in industry, 39 percent in commerce, and 27 percent in services.
San Francisco, Oakland, and the other parts of the Bay Area together make up the largest port on the US Pacific coast (approximately 32 million tons of cargo in 1970) and one of the largest seaports in the USA. The Bay Area is also the terminus of transcontinental railroads and highways. It has three major airports: San Francisco International Airport, Oakland International Airport, and San Jose Municipal Airport. Machine building and metalworking are among the Bay Area’s largest industries; more than one-third of the area’s industrial workers are employed in shipbuilding, including the production of military vessels, and in the manufacture of instruments, electronics equipment, and other goods. Other industries—the food industry, oil refining, the chemical industry, printing, ferrous metallurgy (the plants have incomplete cycles and do not smelt pig iron)—are also prominent. Most industrial enterprises are not in San Francisco itself; for example, there are electronics and aerospace enterprises in Santa Clara and a petroleum refinery in Richmond. Five major US banks, including the Bank of America, as well as Standard Oil of California (petrochemicals), Kaiser Industries (metallurgy, chemicals; located in Oakland), and other companies have their corporate headquarters in San Francisco.
In 1776 a fortified Spanish trading settlement, later named Yerba Buena, was founded on the site of modern San Francisco. In 1811 the Russian settlement of Fort Ross (sold in 1839) was built nearby. In the period 1810–26, during the War for Independence of the Spanish-American Colonies, the San Francisco Bay region became part of independent Mexico. In 1846, during the Mexican War, Yerba Buena was seized by the USA, and, in 1847, it was renamed San Francisco. California’s gold rush in the mid-19th century and the opening up of the West and expansion of Pacific trade gave a great impetus to San Francisco’s growth; the city’s population increased from 500 in 1848 to 25,000 in 1850 and to 234,000 in 1880. San Francisco is a major center of the labor movement. In 1945 the international conference that founded the United Nations met in San Francisco.
San Francisco has a US naval base and naval shipyard. There is a naval air station in Alameda.
In the 19th century, San Francisco was laid out on a grid plan. After the earthquake of 1906 it was almost completely rebuilt. Its hills and architectural variety give the city a unique, picturesque appearance. Spanish colonial structures, including the Mission Dolores (1782–91), have been preserved. The city’s characteristically low buildings and crowded ethnic neighborhoods, such as Chinatown and the Latin Quarter, adjoin the modern skyscrapers of the business district. Of architectural note are the Ferry Building (1896), the Civic Center buildings (1910–20), the Palace of Fine Arts (1915, architect B. May-beck), Unity Hospital (formerly the Maimonides Health Center; 1946, architect E. Mendelsohn), the former V. C. Morris Store (1948, architect F. L. Wright), the Industrial Indemnity Building (formerly the John Hancock Building; 1959, SOM architects), the Bank of America building, the Transamerica Building, the International building, the Holiday Inn hotel, and the Golden Gateway Redevelopment Project (1955–70). Two suspension bridges, both masterpieces of engineering, connect the various parts of the Bay Area. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (1936) spans San Francisco Bay in two sections with a total length of 13 km. The strikingly light and elegant Golden Gate Bridge (1937), with a center span 1,280 m long, crosses the bay to the north of San Francisco. A rapid-transit system—subway in San Francisco and for the most part above ground elsewhere—moves passengers about the Bay Area. Cable cars, preserved by decision of the municipal authorities, have run since 1874. San Francisco is a major tourist center, attracting more than 1.6 million visitors a year.
San Francisco has many educational institutions, including the University of California Medical Center, California State University at San Francisco, the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, and the Conservatory of Music. Research institutions include the California Academy of Sciences. The city’s largest libraries are the San Francisco Public Library, the various university libraries, and the San Francisco Law Library. The largest museums are the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Asian Art Museum, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor (a fine-arts museum).
In 1974, San Francisco had the San Francisco Opera, the Spring Opera Theater, the Western Opera Theater, the San Francisco Symphony, the Civic Light Opera, the San Francisco Ballet, the American Conservatory Theater (drama), the Japan Center, and the Chinese Culture Center.