I might as well add a bit of background information:
San Francisco, city in western California. Famous for its beautiful setting, San Francisco is built on a series of steep hills located on the northern tip of a peninsula at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The bay and its extensions, which include San Pablo Bay and Suisun Bay, constitute one of the great natural harbors of the world, embracing nearly 1,200 sq km (more than 450 sq mi) of water. Because of this, San Francisco was once the major Pacific Coast seaport of the United States. Today the city is an important center for finance, technology, tourism, and culture. The city was named after San Francisco Bay, which in turn was named for Saint Francis of Assisi by early Spanish explorers.
Coextensive with San Francisco County, the city of San Francisco is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by the strait known as the Golden Gate, on the east by San Francisco Bay, and on the south by San Bruno Mountain. San Franciscos boundaries extend north and east to include Alcatraz, Treasure, and Yerba Buena islands in San Francisco Bay, and to the west to the Farallon Islands, 52 km (32 mi) out in the Pacific Ocean.
The cool waters of the ocean and bay surround San Francisco on three sides, moderating the climate, which is characterized by mild, rainy winters and cool, dry summers. Average daily temperatures in the city range from 5° to 13°C (42° to 56°F) in January and from 12° to 22°C (54° to 72°F) in July. September and October are the warmest months in the city. San Francisco averages 500 mm (20 in) of rainfall per year, most of it coming between November and March. Temperatures rarely fall below freezing and snow is uncommon, although San Francisco is well known for the thick blankets of fog that often cover the city in the summer.
San Francisco initially developed as a port city, and its early growth was centered on its waterfront. Almost from the beginning, Market Street has been the central thoroughfare of downtown San Francisco, running from the Ferry Building in the center of the waterfront to the foot of Twin Peaks, a high hill near the citys center. The Ferry Building was for many years the city's most famous landmark. Built between 1895 and 1903, it features a 72-m (235-ft) tower designed after a cathedral bell tower in Seville, Spain.
Running inland from the Ferry Building along Market Street and to its north is the Financial District. There modern skyscrapers such as the 48-story Transamerica Pyramid (completed in 1972) and the 52-story Bank of America building (completed in 1969) share the skyline with those from the early 20th century. These skyscrapers house financial institutions, corporate headquarters, and professional offices. West of the Financial District is a shopping district containing major department stores and specialty shops, many of them centered on Union Square. West of Union Square, primarily along Geary Street, is a theater district. Hotels are scattered throughout these last two areas. To the west of these areas is the Tenderloin, a district of inexpensive hotels and low-rent apartments.
There are several distinctive communities north of Union Square. Chinatown has been the center of San Francisco's Chinese community since the 1850s. Its boundaries have expanded significantly since the 1960s, and it is currently one of the largest Chinese communities in the United States. The neighborhoods built on Nob Hill and Russian Hill are generally affluent. Most apartments and condominiums in these neighborhoods are expensive, and because the two hills are very steep, many of them have dramatic views of the bay. Northeast of Russian Hill is North Beach. Once home to many of the city's Italian immigrants and their children, the area is still known for its numerous Italian restaurants. Just east of North Beach is Telegraph Hill, at the top of which stands Coit Memorial Tower. The tower, a memorial to San Franciscos fire fighters, is 64 m (210 ft) tall and houses several well-known murals.
Directly north of North Beach are Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, areas with many seafood restaurants and tourist-oriented businesses. Nearby are Ghirardelli Square and the Cannery, both former industrial buildings that have been converted into fashionable shops and restaurants, and Hyde Street Pier, with its historic ships.
The area south of Market Street was once a region of warehouses, light manufacturing, and working-class residences. Since the 1970s much of the warehousing and manufacturing has left the region, and some parts of it have been incorporated into the Financial District. The South-of-Market, or SOMA, area also includes museums, an entertainment district, and artistic, high-tech, and multimedia enterprises.
Further south is the Mission District, an area that began to develop in the 1870s as a working-class residential area. Retail shopping in the district is centered along Mission Street. Once home to large numbers of Irish immigrants and their families, the Mission District now houses a vibrant Hispanic community drawn largely from Mexico and Central America. To the west of the Mission District, concentrated along Castro Street, is one of the world's largest and best-known gay and lesbian communities. Parts of the Mission and Castro districts include examples of the late-19th-century Victorian houses for which the city is famous. Many of these houses have been renovated or restored since the 1970s.
The areas west of the city center were long undeveloped because San Franciscos many hills blocked easy access to them. In the relatively flat area just east of Golden Gate Park, however, the Haight-Ashbury section evolved as a middle- and upper-middle-class residential district between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 1960s it became a center for the hippie movement and then descended into drugs and decay. Since the late 1970s much of the area has been renovated, including many of its Victorian houses.
The Sunset District embraces most of the city west of Twin Peaks and south of Golden Gate Park. Most of the district was built as a middle-class residential area with many single-family row houses (houses that have only a very small space between their side walls). A large part of the Sunset District west of 19th Avenue was built up after World War II (1939-1945). Most of the southwestern part of the city, which includes the Lakeshore and Parkside districts and San Francisco State University, was also developed after World War II. North of Golden Gate Park lies the Richmond District, an area much like the Sunset District but with more multiple-unit residences. Since at least the mid-20th century, parts of the Richmond District have been home to a growing Russian community. In addition, an area along Clement Street in the district emerged as a "New Chinatown" in the last part of the 20th century by virtue of its many Chinese-owned businesses.
Between the Richmond District and the Tenderloin lies the Western Addition, built in the late 19th century as a middle- and upper-middle-class residential district. As families began to move to the suburbs after World War I (1914-1918), the large Victorian houses in the area were divided into apartments. During World War II the Western Addition became home to a large African American community. In the 1950s and 1960s large sections of the area were razed for urban redevelopment. More recently, many Victorian houses have been restored and renovated. Two of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods, Pacific Heights and the Marina, are north of the Western Addition. Pacific Heights lies along a range of hills, and the Marina is situated between Pacific Heights and the bay.
Until the mid-1930s traveling by land from San Francisco to the eastern side of San Francisco Bay entailed a long journey down the peninsula and up the other side. Travel by water was more efficient, and ferries plied the waters of the bay in all directions from the Ferry Building. Directly across the bay, the cities of Berkeley and Oakland grew up as suburbs, home to many people who commuted to San Francisco by ferry. San Mateo County developed to the south of San Francisco, largely as a series of residential suburbs. At the southern end of the bay, San Jose grew from a small farm town into a city that surpassed San Francisco in population in the 1980s.
Construction of two large suspension bridges in the 1930s tied San Francisco to the mainland, enabling many more people to live outside the city and commute to work. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which opened in 1936, connects San Francisco to the East Bay area. The Golden Gate Bridge, probably the most widely recognized symbol of the city, opened in 1937. It connects San Francisco to Marin County to the north, one of the wealthiest suburban areas in the nation.
With the construction of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and other links from the city to its suburbs, the San Francisco Bay area has become one large metropolitan region. San Francisco itself is only 122 sq km (47 sq mi) of land area, but the citys Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area (defined by the Census Bureau as San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties) has a total area of 4,665 sq km (1,801 sq mi).
San Francisco grew rapidly throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, increasing in population from 57,000 in 1860 to 417,000 in 1910. Although the population leveled off during the 1930s, rapid growth resumed in the following decade, fed by the huge demand for labor by war industries during World War II. By 1950 the population had reached 775,000. After 1950 the city's population slowly declined as the surrounding suburbs grew. In 2000 the population of San Francisco was 776,733. Some 1.7 million people lived in the three-county San Francisco metropolitan area, and 7 million lived in the Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area defined by the Census Bureau as centered on San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.
Throughout most of San Francisco's history, the citys population was largely white. Among the residents were large numbers of European immigrants and their children. In the late 19th century the largest groups in the city were Irish, German, and British. In the early 20th century Italian and Scandinavian groups also became prominent. The population remained more than 90 percent white until World War II, when significant numbers of African Americans moved to the Bay Area to take jobs in shipbuilding and other wartime industries.
The city has long been home to immigrants from Asia and people of Hispanic descent. Some of the ancestors of these residents moved to California in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when it was a Spanish or Mexican province. Others arrived during the Gold Rush of 1849 or in the early 20th century. With changes in federal immigration law in the 1960s, immigration from Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands began to increase, and many newcomers from those regions settled in San Francisco. Other recent immigrants have come from the Middle East and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, producing significant Arab and Russian communities within the city. By the 1990s San Francisco's population was both racially and ethnically diverse.
According to the 2000 census, whites are 49.7 percent of the people; Asians, 30.8 percent; blacks, 7.8 percent; Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, 0.5 percent; Native Americans, 0.4 percent; and people of mixed heritage or not reporting race, 10.8 percent. Hispanics, who may be of any race, are 14.1 percent of the population.
From its beginnings, San Francisco has been a heavily Roman Catholic city. Immigration from Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries brought many Catholics and a large Jewish community; subsequent immigration has not greatly changed those patterns. Smaller religious groups include various Protestant denominations (including many that conduct services in an Asian language or in Spanish), as well as Buddhists, Muslims, and members of Orthodox churches.
(From Microsoft Encarta)
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