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San Francisco  Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, USA. Upon completion in 1937 it was the world's longest suspension bridge; in 1964 the title was gained by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge over the mouth of New York Harbour.  The streetcars of San Francisco, California, USA, operate on a virtually unique system by which the driver can, at will, attach the car to or detach it from a permanently moving cable running between the rails and below the surface of the road. Other forms of propulsion have been tried, but the gradients in many parts of the city are simply too steep for independent traction.  The Bay Bridge, San Francisco. Built in the 1930s, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge across San Francisco Bay is one of the longest combination bridges in the world and one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century. It has two suspension bridges extending over 13 km/8 mi, a cantilever bridge, and a viaduct to the Oakland side.  Set on a rocky island in San Francisco Bay, and surrounded by cold sea and strong currents, Alcatraz was a prison from which escape was virtually impossible. Former inmates included Al Capone and the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’. The building is now empty of prisoners and is run as a tourist attraction.  The skyscrapers of San Francisco, USA. Arguably the defining architectural achievement of the 20th century, skyscrapers have transformed the appearance of cities all over the world.  The Golden Gate Bridge connecting northern California to the San Francisco peninsula. One of the most famous landmarks of the USA, until 1964 the bridge had the longest main span in the world. Chief Pacific port in California, USA, on the tip of a peninsula in San Francisco Bay; population (2000) 776,700. The entrance channel from the Pacific to San Francisco Bay was named the Golden Gate in 1846; its strait was crossed in 1937 by the world's second-longest single-span bridge, 1,280 m/4,200 ft in length. Manufactured goods include textiles, machinery and metalware, electrical equipment, petroleum products, and pharmaceuticals. San Francisco is also a financial, trade, corporate, and diversified service centre. Tourism is a major industry. A Spanish fort (the Presidio) and the San Francisco de Asis Mission were established here in 1776. San Francisco has the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Features The Golden Gate National Recreation Area includes many historical landmarks. Cable cars were developed in 1872 to cope with the city's 43 hills. Residential areas have many wooden 19th-century houses, and 19th-century industrial brick buildings have been renovated at Ghirardelli Square. The financial district has modern buildings, including the Transamerica Pyramid (1972). In Golden Gate Park, as well as the Japanese Tea Garden, there are several museums: the Asian Art Museum, regarded as the best collection of Asian art in the USA; the M H de Young Memorial Museum, housing an important collection of US art; and the California Academy of Sciences. The former prison of Alcatraz Island lies in the bay and is a major tourist attraction. History Francis Drake's ship, the Golden Hind, stopped in the bay in 1578 on its voyage round the world. In 1776 the Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded, and the village of Yerba Buena grew up beside it. Yerba Buena remained small until the 1830s when it became a trading post, its inhabitants mainly occupied in the beef, hide, and tallow trade. The town was seized by the US army during the Mexican War of 1846, and renamed San Francisco in 1847. It was incorporated in 1850. The 1849 Gold Rush led to a boom, and by 1860 the population was 56,000. In the later 19th century the city became the financial centre of the West; the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange, and the headquarters of the 12th Federal Reserve and Bank of America are sited here. The city is on the San Andreas fault, and was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake (equivalent to 8.3 on the Richter scale) and subsequent three-day fire in 1906. It was the main port for the war in the Pacific during World War II, when it became an important shipbuilding centre. The United Nations Charter (1945) and the peace treaty with Japan (1951) were signed here. In the 1960s the Haight-Ashbury area became the centre of hippie alternative culture. Another earthquake (6.9 on the Richter scale) rocked the city in 1989. Architecture On wealthy Nob Hill stands Grace Cathedral 1929–64, with its replicas of Ghiberti's bronze doors to the baptistry of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. The Coit Memorial Tower is on the top of Telegraph Hill. |
Layout of the city Market Street is the main artery; it runs southwest from the old ferry terminal where most travellers from the city's railhead at Oakland across the bay would arrive by boat, before the completion of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936. |
| Chinatown, on the north side of the city centre, is around Portsmouth Square, and incorporates Grant Avenue, with the Chinatown Gate 1971, and Stockton Street. Many of its inhabitants are descended from those who worked on the building of the railway in the 1860s. |
Museums, galleries, entertainment and education At Hyde Street Pier, on Fisherman's Wharf, there are historic ships, including the Balclutha (1886). Other museums in the city include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Cable Car Museum, and the Wells Fargo History Museum. The city has a symphony orchestra, opera, and the oldest professional ballet company in the USA. |
| Educational institutions include the University of San Francisco (1855), a campus of the University of California (1864), San Francisco State University (1889), and Golden Gate University (1901). In 1999 San Francisco was named the ‘most wired city’ using computers in the USA. |
Geography San Francisco is situated at the northern end of the peninsula with the Bay of San Francisco to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west; San Bruno Mountain lies to the south. It occupies a hilly area of 117 sq km/45 sq mi, which rises to a maximum of 285 m/935 ft on Mount Davidson. Its hilly site is not suited to the typically US grid system and some of the roads are very steep. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers open into San Francisco Bay, which has over 500 km/310 mi of shore-line and extends over an area of 1,165 sq km/448 sq mi. There are numerous islands in the bay; Yerba Buena, Treasure, Angel, and Alcatraz form part of the city. From the city, the Golden Gate Bridge leads to Marin county. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge across San Francisco Bay is one of the longest combination bridges in the world. |
| On the west side of the peninsula, previously an empty area of sand dunes and hills, two major tracts are now occupied by the Presidio, a US Army reservation; and the Golden Gate Park, created out of wasteland to become one of the world's great plant collections. Adjoining the park is the district known as Haight-Ashbury, an old residential area which gained notoriety in the late 1960s as a centre of the hippie youth movement. The port area has undergone redevelopment under the 1990 Waterfront Land Use Plan. |
Suburban expansion With space at a premium on the hilly peninsula, San Francisco has had to spread its commercial and residential functions to other areas. The bay side of the peninsula remains a port area, including the original Spanish Embarcadero, and there is a naval shipyard at Hunters Point. But many industrial and freight handling activities are located across the bay in Oakland, while the city's suburbs have spread south along the spine of the peninsula all the way to San José. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) is a highly automated network (rail and express buses) designed to cut travelling times across the bay; it provides links to Oakland, Richmond, Concord, and Fremont. |
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