As of 2017, it was the seventh-highest income county in the United States, with a per capita personal income of $119,868, meaning that the average San Francisco household earned over $280,000.<\/p>\n
San Francisco was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain<\/a> established Presidio of San Francisco<\/a> at the Golden Gate<\/a> and Mission San Francisco de As\u00eds<\/a> a few miles away, all named for St. Francis of Assisi<\/a>.<\/p>\n The California Gold Rush of 1849<\/a> brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. San Francisco’s status as the West Coast’s largest city peaked between 1870 and 1900, when around 25% of California’s population resided in the city proper. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire<\/a>, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition<\/a> nine years later.<\/p>\n In World War II<\/a>, San Francisco was a major port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater<\/a>. It then became the birthplace of the United Nations<\/a> in 1945. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, significant immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the “hippie” counterculture<\/a>, the Sexual Revolution<\/a>, the Peace Movement<\/a> growing from opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War<\/a>, and other factors led to the Summer of Love<\/a> and the gay rights movement<\/a>, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party<\/a> lines.<\/p>\n A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge<\/a>, cable cars<\/a>, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary<\/a>, Fisherman’s Wharf<\/a>, and its Chinatown<\/a> district. San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co.<\/a>, Gap Inc.<\/a>, Fitbit<\/a>, Salesforce.com<\/a>, Dropbox<\/a>, Reddit<\/a>, Square, Inc.<\/a>, Dolby<\/a>, Airbnb<\/a>, Weebly<\/a>, Pacific Gas and Electric Company<\/a>, Yelp<\/a>, Pinterest<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Uber<\/a>, Lyft<\/a>, Mozilla<\/a>, Wikimedia Foundation<\/a>, Craigslist<\/a>, and Weather Underground<\/a>. It is home to a number of educational and cultural institutions, such as the University of San Francisco (USF)<\/a>, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)<\/a>, San Francisco State University (SFSU)<\/a>, the De Young Museum<\/a>, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, and the California Academy of Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n As of 2018, San Francisco is the highest rated American city on world liveability rankings.<\/p>\n The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people<\/a> resided in a few small villages when an overland Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portol\u00e0<\/a>, arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay<\/a>. Seven years later, on March 28, 1776, the Spanish established the Presidio of San Francisco, followed by a mission, Mission San Francisco de As\u00eds (Mission Dolores), established by the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza<\/a>.<\/p>\n Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico<\/a>. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson<\/a> erected the first independent homestead, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square<\/a>. Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro<\/a>, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena<\/a>, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat<\/a> claimed California for the United States<\/a> on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican\u2013American War, and Captain John B. Montgomery<\/a> arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later.<\/p>\n Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, and Mexico officially ceded the territory to the United States at the end of the war. Despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography.<\/p>\n The California Gold Rush<\/a> brought a flood of treasure seekers (known as “forty-niners”, as in “1849”). With their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia<\/a>, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of great wealth was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels; many were left to rot and some were sunk to establish title to the underwater lot. By 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove<\/a> had been filled to create new land. Buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings.<\/p>\n California was quickly granted statehood in 1850, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate<\/a> and a fort on Alcatraz Island<\/a> to secure the San Francisco Bay. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode<\/a> in Nevada<\/a> in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast<\/a> section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, and gambling.<\/p>\n Entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush. Early winners were the banking industry, with the founding of Wells Fargo<\/a> in 1852 and the Bank of California<\/a> in 1864. Development of the Port of San Francisco<\/a> and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the eastern U.S. rail system via the newly completed Pacific Railroad<\/a> helped make the Bay Area a center for trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli<\/a> began manufacturing chocolate. Immigrant laborers made the city a polyglot culture, with Chinese Railroad Workers<\/a>, drawn to “Old Gold Mountain<\/a>“, creating the city’s Chinatown quarter. In 1870, Asians made up 8% of the population. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city’s sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for a spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park<\/a>. San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By 1890, San Francisco’s population approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest city in the United States at the time. Around 1901, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill<\/a>, and a thriving arts scene. The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900\u20131904<\/a>.<\/p>\n At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that spread across the city and burned out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people lost their lives, though modern estimates put the number in the several thousands. More than half of the city’s population of 400,000 was left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay.<\/p>\n Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini’s<\/a> Bank of Italy<\/a>, later to become Bank of America,<\/a> provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The influential San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association<\/a> or SPUR was founded in 1910 to address the quality of housing after the earthquake. The earthquake hastened development of western neighborhoods that survived the fire, including Pacific Heights<\/a>, where many of the city’s wealthy rebuilt their homes. In turn, the destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in splendid Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.<\/p>\n It was during this period San Francisco built some of its most important infrastructure. Civil Engineer Michael O’Shaughnessy<\/a> was hired by San Francisco Mayor James Rolph<\/a> as chief engineer for the city in September 1912 to supervise the construction of the Twin Peaks Reservoir<\/a>, the Stockton Street Tunnel<\/a>, the Twin Peaks Tunnel<\/a>, the San Francisco Municipal Railway<\/a>, the Auxiliary Water Supply System, and new sewers. San Francisco’s streetcar system, of which the J, K, L, M, and N lines survive today<\/a>, was pushed to completion by O’Shaughnessy between 1915 and 1927. It was the O’Shaughnessy Dam<\/a>, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir<\/a>, and Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct that would have the largest effect on San Francisco. An abundant water supply enabled San Francisco to develop into the city it has become today.<\/p>\n In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash<\/a>, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it was at the height of the Great Depression<\/a> that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco\u2013Oakland Bay Bridge<\/a> and the Golden Gate Bridge<\/a>, completing them in 1936 and 1937, respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz, a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone<\/a>, and Robert Franklin Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz<\/a>. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World’s fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition<\/a> in 1939\u201340, creating Treasure Island<\/a> in the middle of the bay to house it.<\/p>\n During World War II, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard<\/a> became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason<\/a> became the primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South, to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The United Nations Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco<\/a> officially ended the war with Japan.<\/p>\n Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways, of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition. The onset of containerization made San Francisco’s small piers obsolete, and cargo activity moved to the larger Port of Oakland<\/a>. The city began to lose industrial jobs and turned to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia<\/a> and Latin America<\/a>. From 1950 to 1980, the city lost over 10 percent of its population.<\/p>\n Over this period, San Francisco became a magnet for America’s counterculture. Beat Generation<\/a> writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance<\/a> and centered on the North Beach neighborhood<\/a> in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury<\/a> in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love.<\/p>\n In 1974, the Zebra murders<\/a> left at least 16 people dead. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement, with the emergence of The Castro<\/a> as an urban gay village, the election of Harvey Milk<\/a> to the Board of Supervisors<\/a>, and his assassination, along with that of Mayor George Moscone<\/a>, in 1978.<\/p>\n Bank of America completed 555 California Street<\/a> in 1969 and the Transamerica Pyramid<\/a> was completed in 1972, igniting a wave of “Manhattanization” that lasted until the late 1980s, a period of extensive high-rise development downtown. The 1980s also saw a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people in the city<\/a>, an issue that remains today, despite many attempts to address it. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake<\/a> caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in the Marina<\/a> and South of Market<\/a> districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway<\/a> and much of the damaged Central Freeway<\/a>, allowing the city to reclaim The Embarcadero<\/a> as its historic downtown waterfront and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood.<\/p>\n Two recent decades have seen two booms driven by the internet industry. First was the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the San Francisco economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once-poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified. Demand for new housing and office space ignited a second wave of high-rise development, this time in the South of Market district. By 2000, the city’s population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded and their employees were laid off. Yet high technology and entrepreneurship remain mainstays of the San Francisco economy. By the mid-2000s, the social media boom had begun, with San Francisco becoming a popular location for tech offices and a popular place to live for people employed in Silicon Valley companies such as Apple<\/a> and Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States<\/a> at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several picturesque islands\u2014Alcatraz, Treasure Island and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island<\/a>, and small portions of Alameda Island<\/a>, Red Rock Island<\/a>, and Angel Island<\/a>\u2014are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands<\/a>, 27 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a “seven-by-seven-mile square”, a common local colloquialism referring to the city’s shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly 232 square miles.<\/p>\n There are more than 50 hills within city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after the hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill, Potrero Hill<\/a>, and Russian Hill<\/a>. Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks<\/a>, a pair of hills forming one of the city’s highest points, forms a popular overlook spot. San Francisco’s tallest hill, Mount Davidson<\/a>, is 928 feet high and is capped with a 103-foot tall cross<\/a> built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower<\/a>, a large red and white radio and television transmission tower.<\/p>\n The nearby San Andreas<\/a> and Hayward Faults<\/a> are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city’s infrastructure development. The city constructed an auxiliary water supply system and has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage. USGS<\/a> has released the California earthquake forecast which models earthquake occurrence in California.<\/p>\n San Francisco’s shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina, Mission Bay<\/a>, and Hunters Point<\/a>, as well as large sections of the Embarcadero, sit on areas of landfill. Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from the excavation of the Yerba Buena Tunnel<\/a> through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge.<\/p>\n Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes. The resulting soil liquefaction<\/a> causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Most of the city’s natural watercourses, such as Islais Creek<\/a> and Mission Creek<\/a>, have been culverted and built over, although the Public Utilities Commission<\/a> is studying proposals to daylight or restore some creeks.<\/p>\n According to academic Rob Wilson, San Francisco is a global city, a status that pre-dated the city’s popularity during the California Gold Rush. Such cities are characterized by their ethnic clustering, network of international connectivity, and convergence of technological innovation. Global cities, such as San Francisco, are considered to be complex and require a high level of talent as well as large masses of low wage workers. A divide is created within the city of ethnic, typically lower-class neighborhoods, and expensive ones with newly developed buildings. This in turn creates a population of highly educated, white-collar individuals as well as blue-collar workers, many of whom are immigrants, and who both are drawn to the increasing number of opportunities available. Competition for these opportunities pushes growth and adaptation in world centers.<\/p>\n San Francisco has a diversified service economy, with employment spread across a wide range of professional services, including financial services, tourism, and high technology. In 2016, approximately 27% of workers were employed in professional business services; 14% in leisure and hospitality; 13% in government services; 12% in education and health care; 11% in trade, transportation, and utilities; and 8% in financial activities.<\/p>\n The legacy of the California Gold Rush turned San Francisco into the principal banking and finance center of the West Coast in the early twentieth century. Montgomery Street<\/a> in the Financial District<\/a> became known as the “Wall Street of the West”, home to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco<\/a>, the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters, and the site of the now-defunct Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.<\/a><\/p>\n Bank of America, a pioneer in making banking services accessible to the middle class, was founded in San Francisco and in the 1960s, built the landmark modern skyscraper at 555 California Street for its corporate headquarters. Many large financial institutions, multinational banks, and venture capital firms are based in or have regional headquarters in the city.<\/p>\n Since the 1990s, San Francisco’s economy has diversified away from finance and tourism towards the growing fields of high tech, biotechnology, and medical research. Technology jobs accounted for just 1 percent of San Francisco’s economy in 1990, growing to 4 percent in 2010 and an estimated 8 percent by the end of 2013. San Francisco became an epicenter of Internet start-up companies during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and the subsequent social media boom of the late 2000s.\u00a0 Since 2010, San Francisco proper has attracted an increasing share of venture capital investments as compared to nearby Silicon Valley<\/a>, attracting 423 financings worth US$4.58 billion in 2013. In 2004, the city approved a payroll tax exemption for biotechnology companies to foster growth in the Mission Bay neighborhood, site of a second campus and hospital of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Mission Bay hosts the UCSF Medical Center<\/a>, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine<\/a>, California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences<\/a>, and Gladstone Institutes<\/a>, as well as more than 40 private-sector life sciences companies.<\/p>\n The top employer in the city is the city government<\/a> itself, employing 5.3% of the city’s population, followed by UCSF with over 22,000 employees. Third\u2014at 1.8% is California Pacific Medical Center<\/a>, the largest private-sector employer. Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self-employed firms make up 85% of city establishments, and the number of San Franciscans employed by firms of more than 1,000 employees has fallen by half since 1977. The growth of national big box and formula retail chains into the city has been made intentionally difficult by political and civic consensus. In an effort to buoy small privately owned businesses in San Francisco and preserve the unique retail personality of the city, the Small Business Commission started a publicity campaign in 2004 to keep a larger share of retail dollars in the local economy, and the Board of Supervisors has used the planning code to limit the neighborhoods where formula retail establishments can set up shop, an effort affirmed by San Francisco voters.<\/p>\n Like many U.S. cities, San Francisco once had a significant manufacturing sector employing nearly 60,000 workers in 1969, but nearly all production left for cheaper locations by the 1980s. As of 2014, San Francisco has seen a small resurgence in manufacturing, with more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs across 500 companies, doubling since 2011. The city’s largest manufacturing employer is Anchor Brewing Company<\/a>, and the largest by revenue is Timbuk2<\/a>.<\/p>\n San Francisco became a hub for technological driven economic growth during the internet boom of the 1990s, and still holds an important position in the world city network today. Intense redevelopment towards the “new economy” makes business more technologically minded. Between the years of 1999 and 2000, the job growth rate was 4.9%, creating over 50,000 jobs in technology firms and internet content production.<\/p>\n In the second technological boom driven by social media in the mid 2000s, San Francisco became a popular location for companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook<\/a> and Twitter to base their tech offices and for their employees to live. Since then, tech employment has continued to increase. In 2014, San Francisco’s tech employment grew nearly 90% between 2010 and 2014, beating out Silicon Valley’s 30% growth rate over the same period.<\/p>\n The tech sector’s dominance in the Bay Area is internationally recognized and continues to attract new businesses and young entrepreneurs from all over the globe. San Francisco is now widely considered the most important city in the world for new technology startups. A recent high of 7 billion dollars in venture capital was invested in the region. These startup companies hire a high concentration of well educated individuals looking to work in the tech industry, and creates a city population of highly concentrated levels of education. Over 50% of San Franciscans have a 4-year university degree, ranking the city among the highest levels of education in the country and world.<\/p>\n Tourism is one of the city’s largest private-sector industries, accounting for more than one out of seven jobs in the city. The city’s frequent portrayal in music, film, and popular culture has made the city and its landmarks recognizable worldwide. In 2016, it attracted the fifth-highest number of foreign tourists of any city in the United States, and is one of the top-20 destination cities worldwide by international visitor spending. More than 25 million visitors arrived in San Francisco in 2016, adding US$9.96 billion to the economy. With a large hotel infrastructure and a world-class convention facility in the Moscone Center<\/a>, San Francisco is a popular destination for annual conventions and conferences.<\/p>\n Some of the most popular tourist attractions in San Francisco noted by the Travel Channel include the Golden Gate Bridge and Alamo Square Park<\/a>, which is home to the famous “Painted Ladies<\/a>“. There is also Lombard Street<\/a>, known for its “crookedness” and beautiful views.<\/p>\n Tourists also flood to Pier 39<\/a>, which offers dining, shopping, entertainment, and beautiful views of the bay, sun-bathing seals, and the famous Alcatraz Island.<\/p>\n Due to its unique geography, and the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, Interstate 80<\/a> begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. Route 101<\/a> connects to the western terminus of Interstate 80 and provides access to the south of the city along San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northward, the routing for U.S. 101 uses arterial streets to connect to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct automobile link to Marin County<\/a> and the North Bay<\/a>.<\/p>\n State Route 1<\/a> also enters San Francisco from the north via the Golden Gate Bridge and bisects the city as the 19th Avenue<\/a> arterial thoroughfare, joining with Interstate 280<\/a> at the city’s southern border. Interstate 280 continues south from San Francisco, and also turns to the east along the southern edge of the city, terminating just south of the Bay Bridge in the South of Market neighborhood.<\/p>\n After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, city leaders demolished the Embarcadero Freeway and a portion of the Central Freeway, converting them into street-level boulevards.<\/p>\n State Route 35<\/a> enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard and terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. State Route 82<\/a> enters San Francisco from the south as Mission Street, and terminates shortly thereafter at its junction with 280.<\/p>\n The Western Terminus<\/a> of the historic transcontinental Lincoln Highway<\/a>, the first road across America, is in San Francisco’s Lincoln Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n 32% of San Francisco residents use public transportation for their daily commute to work, ranking it first on the West Coast and third overall in the United States. The San Francisco Municipal Railway<\/a>, known as Muni, is the primary public transit system of San Francisco. Muni is the seventh-largest transit system in the United States, with 210,848,310 rides in 2006. The system operates a combined light rail and subway system, the Muni Metro, as well as large bus and trolley coach networks. Additionally, it runs a historic streetcar line, which runs on Market Street from Castro Street to Fisherman’s Wharf. It also operates the famous cable cars, which have been designated as a National Historic Landmark<\/a> and are a major tourist attraction.<\/p>\n Bay Area Rapid Transit<\/a>, a regional Rapid Transit system, connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the underwater Transbay Tube<\/a>. The line runs under Market Street<\/a> to Civic Center <\/a>where it turns south to the Mission District<\/a>, the southern part of the city, and through northern San Mateo County<\/a>, to the San Francisco International Airport<\/a>, and Millbrae<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another commuter rail system, Caltrain<\/a>, runs from San Francisco along the San Francisco Peninsula to San Jose<\/a>. Historically, trains operated by Southern Pacific Lines<\/a> ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles<\/a>, via Palo Alto<\/a> and San Jose.<\/p>\n Amtrak California Thruway Motorcoach<\/a> runs a shuttle bus from three locations in San Francisco to its station across the bay in Emeryville<\/a>. Additionally, BART offers connections to San Francisco from Amtrak’s stations in Emeryville, Oakland<\/a> and Richmond<\/a>, and Caltrain offers connections in San Jose and Santa Clara<\/a>. Thruway service also runs south to San Luis Obispo<\/a> with connection to the Pacific Surfliner<\/a>.<\/p>\n San Francisco Bay Ferry<\/a> operates from the Ferry Building<\/a> and Pier 39 to points in Oakland, Alameda<\/a>, Bay Farm Island<\/a>, South San Francisco<\/a>, and north to Vallejo<\/a> in Solano County<\/a>. The Golden Gate Ferry<\/a> is the other ferry operator with service between San Francisco and Marin County. Soltrans<\/a> runs supplemental bus service between the Ferry Building and Vallejo.<\/p>\n San Francisco was an early adopter of carsharing in America. The non-profit City Carshare<\/a> opened in 2001.<\/p>\n To accommodate the large amount of San Francisco citizens who commute to the Silicon Valley daily, companies like Google and Apple have begun to provide private bus transportation for their employees, from San Francisco locations to the tech start-up hotspot. These buses have quickly become a heated topic of debate within the city, as protesters claim they block bus lanes and delay public buses.<\/p>\n Though located 13 miles south of downtown in unincorporated San Mateo County, San Francisco International Airport (SFO)<\/a> is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. SFO is a hub for United Airlines<\/a> and Virgin America<\/a>. SFO is a major international gateway to Asia and Europe, with the largest international terminal in North America. In 2011, SFO was the eighth-busiest airport in the U.S. and the 22nd-busiest in the world, handling over 40.9 million passengers.<\/p>\n Located across the bay, Oakland International Airport<\/a> is a popular, low-cost alternative to SFO. Geographically, Oakland Airport is approximately the same distance from downtown San Francisco as SFO, but due to its location across San Francisco Bay, it is greater driving distance from San Francisco.<\/p>\n Cycling is a popular mode of transportation in San Francisco. 75,000 residents commute by bicycle per day. Ford GoBike, previously named Bay Area Bike Share at inception, launched in August 2013 with 700 bikes in downtown San Francisco, selected cities in the East Bay, and San Jose. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Bay Area Air Quality Management District<\/a> are responsible for the operation with management provided by Motivate<\/a>. A major expansion started in 2017 along with a rebranding as Ford GoBike. Pedestrian traffic is a major mode of transport. In 2015, Walk Score<\/a> ranked San Francisco the second-most walkable city in the United States.<\/p>\n In 1900, banker and art patron Mayor James Duval Phelan, mayor from 1897 to 1902, recommended to the Board of Supervisors that San Francisco adopt a flag and motto. Over 100 designs were submitted and John M. Gamble’s proposal was selected. It depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes on a white field. The mythological phoenix appears in many ancient cultures and is a symbol of immortality. When the long-lived phoenix feels death is near, it builds a nest of aromatic wood and sets it afire. A new phoenix then arises from the ashes, just as San Francisco arose from the great fires of the 1850s. The motto “Oro en paz y fierro en guerra” “Gold in Peace and Iron in War” refers to the city’s then-recent experience during the Spanish\u2013American War as the embarkation point for troops to the Philippines in 1898.<\/p>\n Below the phoenix is a banner which reads in Spanish, Oro en Paz\u2014Fierro en Guerra (English: “Gold in Peace, Iron in War”). Because of this, the official city colors are gold and black; these two colors decorate the dome of San Francisco City Hall.<\/p>\n The yellow border, now reproduced as a part of the flag, was originally intended to be a gold fringe, but mistakenly became incorporated into the design. When used indoors, as is the custom, a gold fringe is added to what was originally intended to be the fringe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman’s Wharf, and its Chinatown district. San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., Fitbit, Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, Inc., Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Craigslist, and Weather Underground. It is home to a number of educational and cultural institutions, such as the University of San Francisco (USF), University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco State University (SFSU), the De Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the California Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[16,14,8,48,5,6,7,41,30,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Mission-San-Francisco-de-Asis-300x190.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"1906](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/1906-Fire-300x67.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
History:<\/h2>\n
Early History:<\/h3>\n
Mexican Rule to United States Rule:<\/h3>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/San-Francisco-1846-300x277.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Gold Rush Days:<\/h3>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/San-Francisco-1851-300x201.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
1906 Earthquake:<\/h3>\n
Recovery:<\/h3>\n
![\"1915](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/1915-Panama-Pacific-Exposition-300x211.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Alcatraz\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Alcatraz-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
World War II:<\/h3>\n
Post War Developments:<\/h3>\n
![\"Haight](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Haight-Ashbury-300x204.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Recent Developments:<\/h3>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/San-Francisco-From-Marin-300x183.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"Bay](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Bay-Bridge-Construction-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"Financial](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Financial-District-225x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Anchor](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Anchor-Brewing-300x164.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Lombard](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Lombard-Street-225x300.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
Transportation:<\/h2>\n
Freeways and Roads:<\/h3>\n
![\"Bay](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Bay-Bridge-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
![\"Golden](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Golden-Gate-Bridge-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Public Transportation:<\/h3>\n
![\"Cable](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/Cable-Car-187x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Airports:<\/h3>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/05\/San-Francisco-International-Airport-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Cycling and Walking:<\/h3>\n
The Flag:<\/h2>\n
History:<\/h3>\n
Design:<\/h3>\n