City North America
San Francisco
San Francisco is a hilly city in California. It sits by a big bay, has a famous orange-red bridge and little cable cars that climb steep streets.
San Francisco sits on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay in California. Spanish settlers arrived in 1776, the Gold Rush that began in 1848 turned it into a booming port, and today it is famous for the Golden Gate Bridge, its cable cars, its steep hills and its summer fog.
San Francisco, a city and county of about 120 km² at the northern tip of a peninsula in northern California, guards the Golden Gate, the strait joining its bay to the Pacific. Founded as a Spanish presidio and mission in 1776 and transformed by the Gold Rush, it rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and fire; the 2020 census counted 873,965 people.
Photo: Lightandtruth, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover San Francisco
San Francisco is a city in California, in the United States.
It sits by the ocean and a big bay. Its streets go up and down steep hills. A long orange-red bridge reaches across the water.
San Francisco is in northern California, on the West Coast of the United States. It covers the northern tip of a peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco Bay to the east. A narrow channel called the Golden Gate joins the bay to the ocean.
The city is hilly and roughly square, and its streets climb straight up steep slopes, giving splendid views of the bay. About 826,000 people lived there in 2025. In this photo from the Marin Headlands, yellow spring flowers bloom in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, with the city's towers beyond.
San Francisco, coextensive with San Francisco county, occupies the northern tip of a peninsula between the Pacific and San Francisco Bay, with the bedroom suburbs of San Mateo county to the south. Its highest hills, Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson and Mount Sutro, exceed 270 m; because pioneer planners imposed a squared-off grid, downtown streets run straight up precipitous slopes.
The 2020 census counted 873,965 residents, and the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate for July 1, 2025, was 826,079; the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley metro area had 4,749,008 in 2020. Britannica calls it a cultural and financial center of the western United States and one of the country's most cosmopolitan cities, where more than half the residents are not white.
- Country
- United States (California)
- People in the city (2025 estimate)
- about 826,000
- People in the city (2020 census)
- 873,965
- Area
- about 120 km²
Famous places
The Golden Gate Bridge is long and orange-red.
It is a suspension bridge: its road hangs high above the water. Out in the bay is a small rocky island called Alcatraz. At Fisherman's Wharf, people watch fishing boats, and seals rest nearby.
The orange-red Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937, crosses the Golden Gate to Marin County. It is a suspension bridge whose main span stretches 1,280 meters, the longest in the world until 1964, and it rises about 80 meters above the water. The Bay Bridge to Oakland opened in 1936.
Alcatraz, a rocky island in the bay whose name is Spanish for "pelican," was a high-security prison from 1934 to 1963; today visitors take a boat tour there. Fisherman's Wharf is the most popular spot for tourists, where families watch fishermen mend nets and buy sourdough bread, and Pier 39 is a great place to watch seals.
The Golden Gate Bridge (1937) is a pure suspension bridge with a 1,280 m center span, the world's longest clear span until the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964, about 80 m above the bay at its highest. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (1936), 7.2 km long, combines two back-to-back suspension bridges, a tunnel through Yerba Buena Island, truss spans and a cantilever span.
Alcatraz (Spanish for "pelican") was the country's most notorious maximum-security prison from 1934 to 1963; a multi-tribal Native American group occupied it from 1969 to 1971, and it joined Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1972. Treasure Island was built for the 1939 world's fair. The Presidio, the 1776 Spanish garrison, became part of the recreation area in 1994, and Golden Gate Park was reclaimed from sandy desert. Downtown, the Transamerica Pyramid and Embarcadero Center mark the 'Manhattanization' that followed the late 1960s.
- Golden Gate Bridge
- completed 1937; center span 1,280 m
- San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge
- completed 1936; 7.2 km long
- Alcatraz
- federal prison 1934–63; part of a national recreation area since 1972
- Presidio
- Spanish garrison founded 1776
Mission, Gold Rush and a great earthquake
Long ago, the Ohlone people lived here.
Then settlers came from Mexico and built a fort and a mission. When gold was found, ships full of people sailed in. Later, a big earthquake shook the city and fires burned many buildings. People worked hard and built the city again.
The Ohlone people lived here long before Europeans arrived. In 1769 a Spanish expedition became the first Europeans to see the bay, and on June 27, 1776, settlers led by Juan Bautista de Anza arrived from Mexico and built a presidio (a fort) and Mission San Francisco de Asís, now called Mission Dolores.
When gold was found at Sutter's Mill, inland, in early 1848, tens of thousands of gold hunters poured in, and by 1851 more than 800 ships sat in the cove. On April 18, 1906, a powerful earthquake struck early in the morning, and fires burned the city center for four days. About 250,000 people lost their homes, and many camped in Golden Gate Park while San Francisco was rebuilt.
The Presidio's history reaches back to the native Ohlone people. Gaspar de Portolá's expedition saw the bay in 1769; Anza's party of 193 colonists and soldiers arrived on June 27, 1776, founding the northernmost presidio of Spain's empire and Mission San Francisco de Asís. Mexican rule followed, and the U.S. Army took the Presidio in 1846. The Gold Rush brought some 40,000 gold seekers by sea, 30,000 overland and 9,000 from Mexico; the Comstock silver boom after 1859 made the city a metropolis of nearly 150,000 by 1870.
At about 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a foreshock was followed 20–25 seconds later by the great earthquake, with strong shaking lasting 45–60 seconds; ground made by filling the bay failed and shook hardest. The fire that followed burned for four days across 10 km² and 512 blocks, destroying 28,000 buildings and leaving 250,000 people homeless. The city hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, built shipyards in World War II, and saw the United Nations founded at the San Francisco Conference of 1945. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake badly damaged the Marina District, while modern towers largely came through unharmed.
Getting around San Francisco
San Francisco's cable cars are like little trolleys pulled up the hills.
A cable under the street pulls them along. Fast trains run in a tunnel under the bay. Ferries cross the water too.
San Francisco's most famous symbol is its cable car. Andrew Hallidie invented the system, tested in 1873, because he felt sorry for the horses that were often hurt pulling wagons up the steep hills. Before 1906 there were 600 cars on 177 kilometers of track; today more than two dozen cars run on three lines, carrying about 15,000 people a day.
BART trains, opened in 1972, speed between San Francisco and nearby cities, through a tube under the bay more than 5.8 kilometers long. Ferries, which nearly disappeared after the bridges opened, now cross again to Marin County.
Andrew Hallidie's cable car, tested in 1873, spread to Chicago, Kansas City and Los Angeles by the 1880s; only San Francisco kept it. Before the 1906 earthquake 600 cars covered 177 km of route; today more than two dozen run at peak hours on three lines, carrying about 15,000 riders a day. BART, the part-subway, part-elevated Bay Area Rapid Transit system opened in 1972, runs automated trains at up to 130 km/h through an underwater tube over 5.8 km long.
On a peninsula, the city has always been a dead end for rail: from September 6, 1869, transcontinental trains stopped in Oakland, and ferries carried passengers across. Ferries once delivered more passengers to the Ferry Building than any depot except London's Charing Cross; displaced by the bridges, they returned on a smaller scale when the bridges became congested.
- Cable cars
- tested 1873; 3 lines today
- BART trains
- since 1972, through a 5.8 km underwater tube
- Cable car riders
- about 15,000 a day
Weather and seasons
San Francisco is never very hot or very cold.
Winter is rainy and mild. Summer is cool and often foggy. Autumn is the sunniest, warmest time.
San Francisco has mild weather all year. Winter is rainy and mild, spring sunny, summer foggy and cool, and autumn sunny and warm. In January, days average about 14 °C and nights about 8 °C; in September, the warmest month, days average about 21 °C.
The city is famous for its summer fog, which hangs low until midday. It forms when warm, damp air from the ocean meets cold water rising from the deep along the coast. Almost all of the rain, about 600 millimeters a year, falls from November to April.
World Meteorological Organization normals for 1981–2010 give mean daily maxima and minima of 13.8 °C and 7.6 °C in January and 19.2 °C and 12.3 °C in July; September is warmest, at 21.2 °C. Monthly totals add up to about 600 mm, with 113–116 mm in December, January and February and essentially none in July.
Britannica describes rainy, mild winters, sunny springs, foggy, cool summers and warm, sunny autumns, with sunshine during two-thirds of possible daylight hours. The summer fog forms where warm, moist ocean air meets cold water upwelling along the coast. Periodic smog, mainly from cars, is a concern.
- January, average daily high and low
- about 14 °C and 8 °C
- September, average daily high and low
- about 21 °C and 13 °C
- Rain in a year
- about 600 mm, almost all from November to April
Living in San Francisco
San Francisco has neighborhoods full of colorful wooden houses.
Families visit the wharf to see fishing boats and seals. They eat tangy sourdough bread. They ride the cable cars up and down the hills.
People from all over the world have made San Francisco their home, building neighborhoods such as Chinatown, North Beach and the Mission District. Many streets are lined with pastel houses and "painted ladies," wooden houses with fancy, brightly colored trim.
Tourism is a big business: visitors explore the bridges, Coit Tower, crooked Lombard Street, Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, and take whale-watching trips from the waterfront. San Francisco is also a center of banking and finance, which started when the first pinch of gold dust was traded for cash.
Waves of European, Chinese and Latin American immigrants created enclaves such as Chinatown, North Beach and the Mission District, and the Haight-Ashbury was home to the 1960s counterculture. Residential neighborhoods range from Pacific Heights to Hunters Point, many filled with pastel stucco houses and Victorian 'painted ladies.' Since World War II the city has faced congestion, pollution, homelessness and a high cost of living.
A financial center since the Gold Rush, it is home to the Pacific Stock Exchange and the headquarters of banks such as Wells Fargo, and ranks among the nation's largest investment-banking centers; tourism is a major source of income, while apparel, food processing and shipbuilding lead its smaller manufacturing sector. The Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915 and the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which created the United Nations, put it on the world stage.
- Famous food
- sourdough bread
- Neighborhoods
- Chinatown, North Beach, the Mission and more
- United Nations founded here
- 1945
San Francisco on the map
Find San Francisco on the globe.
Look for the United States. Go all the way to the west coast, by the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco is by a big bay in California.
San Francisco is on the West Coast of the United States, in northern California. It fills the northern tip of a peninsula. The Pacific Ocean is to the west, and San Francisco Bay is to the east.
The Golden Gate, the narrow channel north of the city, joins the bay to the ocean. Across it, the Golden Gate Bridge leads to Marin County. Oakland and Berkeley lie across the bay to the east.
San Francisco lies at about 37.8° N and 122.4° W. San Francisco Bay is a drowned river valley flooded as the last ice sheets melted; filling of tidelands shrank it from about 1,800 km² in 1880 to 1,125 km², and since 1965 a state commission has controlled further landfill. The bay is up to 21 km wide, and its deepest point, 109 m, is in the Golden Gate.
The gold-rush city occupied today's financial district, North Beach and Chinatown, later extended by fill along the waterfront; the remains of ships abandoned in 1849 lie beneath office buildings several blocks inland. Alcatraz, Yerba Buena and the man-made Treasure Island lie within the city limits.
- Latitude
- about 37.8° north
- Longitude
- about 122.4° west
- Deepest point of the bay
- 109 m, in the Golden Gate
Amazing facts
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The cable car was invented to help horses.
Andrew Hallidie invented San Francisco's cable car because he felt sorry for horses that were often hurt pulling wagons up the steep hills.
Andrew Hallidie devised the cable car, tested in 1873, out of sympathy for dray horses injured on the steep hills; San Francisco alone kept the system.
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Old ships are buried under San Francisco's buildings.
During the Gold Rush, sailors left their ships to look for gold. Remains of some of those ships now lie under office buildings, several blocks from today's shore.
Remnants of many ships deserted in 1849 lie under office buildings several blocks inland, on land made by filling the waterfront.
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Alcatraz means pelican.
Alcatraz, the island in San Francisco Bay, gets its name from the Spanish word for "pelican."
Alcatraz (Spanish: 'pelican') was a maximum-security federal prison from 1934 to 1963 and has been part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1972.
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San Francisco's summer can be colder than its autumn.
In San Francisco, summer is often foggy and cool, and the warmest month is September.
Summer fog, formed where warm, moist ocean air meets cold upwelling coastal water, keeps July cooler than September, the warmest month in WMO normals.
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The United Nations started in San Francisco.
In 1945, a meeting in San Francisco created the United Nations.
The United Nations was born at the San Francisco Conference, held from April to June 1945.
Words to know
- peninsula
- land with water on three sides
- bay
- a part of the sea that curves into the land
- suspension bridge
- a bridge whose road hangs from cables strung between tall towers
- presidio
- a Spanish fort or military post
- Gold Rush
- a time when huge numbers of people hurried to a place where gold had been found
- earthquake
- a sudden shaking of the ground caused by movement inside the Earth
- fog
- a cloud that forms close to the ground
Discovery challenge
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What color is the Golden Gate Bridge?
What color is the Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937?
Britannica describes the Golden Gate Bridge's color as what?
- Orange-red
- Gold
- Blue
Show the answer
Orange-red
Orange-red, even though it is called Golden!
Orange-red. The name Golden Gate comes from the channel it crosses.
Orange-red.
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What climbs San Francisco's steep hills?
Which vehicles, pulled by a cable under the street, are San Francisco's best-known symbol?
Which transport system, tested by Andrew Hallidie in 1873, survives only in San Francisco?
- Cable cars
- Gondolas
- Camels
Show the answer
Cable cars
Cable cars! Clang, clang!
Cable cars, still on three lines today.
The cable car.
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What brought lots of people to San Francisco long ago?
What discovery in 1848 brought tens of thousands of people to San Francisco?
Which 1848 discovery turned a modest village into one of the most extraordinary cities ever built?
- Gold
- Oil
- Diamonds
Show the answer
Gold
Gold!
Gold, starting the Gold Rush.
Gold, found at Sutter's Mill in early 1848, which started the California Gold Rush.
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What is San Francisco's summer often like?
What weather is San Francisco famous for in summer?
What forms where warm, moist ocean air meets cold upwelling water along San Francisco's coast?
- Fog
- Snow
- Sandstorms
Show the answer
Fog
Foggy and cool!
Fog, which lies low until midday.
The summer fog.
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What happened in San Francisco in 1906?
What struck San Francisco on the morning of April 18, 1906?
What struck at about 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, followed by a four-day fire?
- An earthquake
- A volcano
- A blizzard
Show the answer
An earthquake
An earthquake. Then people rebuilt the city.
An earthquake, followed by fires. The city was rebuilt.
The great earthquake; the fire burned 512 blocks before rain helped put it out.
Nearby places
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Watch
Landmark
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge crosses the Golden Gate, the strait where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. Built from 1933 to 1937, it hangs from two huge steel cables slung over towers 746 feet (227 meters) above the water, and it is painted a color called International Orange.
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Watch
Natural wonder
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park lies in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Its granite cliffs, rounded domes and tall waterfalls were shaped by rivers and then by glaciers, which turned narrow canyons into wide U-shaped valleys. It is also home to giant sequoia trees and hundreds of black bears.
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City
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is the second-biggest city in the United States, spread across a wide plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1781 as a small farming village, it grew into a world center of movies and music. About 3.9 million people lived there in 2020.
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Natural wonder
Bryce Canyon National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park, in southern Utah, is not really a canyon. It is a row of giant bowls, called amphitheaters, carved into the edge of a high plateau and filled with colorful rock spires called hoodoos. The park says it has the largest collection of hoodoos in the world. Ice and rain shaped them from rocks first laid down in an ancient lake.
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Natural wonder
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a huge, steep-sided canyon in Arizona carved by the Colorado River. It is about 447 kilometers long and, on average, 1.6 kilometers deep, and its walls show layers of rock almost two billion years old.
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Natural wonder
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, or Rockies, stretch about 4,800 kilometers from northern Canada to New Mexico in the United States. They include more than 100 separate ranges, and their highest peak, Mount Elbert in Colorado, is 4,399 meters tall. Glaciers carved their peaks and valleys, and famous parks such as Banff, Jasper and Yellowstone protect their lakes, hot springs and wildlife.
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Natural wonder
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a giant volcano in the western United States. Heat from melted rock deep underground powers more than 10,000 hot springs, geysers, mudpots and steam vents, and the park is home to bison, wolves and two kinds of bears.
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Natural wonder
Banff National Park
Banff National Park lies in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, in western Canada. It began in 1885 around a group of hot springs, which makes it Canada's first national park. Today it covers 6,641 square kilometers of jagged peaks, glaciers, forests and turquoise lakes such as Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, and it is home to grizzly bears, wolves, elk and many more animals.
Explore next
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Country
United States
The United States is a large country in North America made of 50 states, from icy Alaska to the warm islands of Hawaii. It has the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River and Yellowstone, and about 342 million people live there.
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Landmark
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge crosses the Golden Gate, the strait where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific Ocean. Built from 1933 to 1937, it hangs from two huge steel cables slung over towers 746 feet (227 meters) above the water, and it is painted a color called International Orange.
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Watch
Natural wonder
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park lies in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Its granite cliffs, rounded domes and tall waterfalls were shaped by rivers and then by glaciers, which turned narrow canyons into wide U-shaped valleys. It is also home to giant sequoia trees and hundreds of black bears.
- Watch Geography Earthquakes and faults Earthquakes happen when rocks suddenly slip along a crack in the Earth called a fault. The slip sends waves of shaking through the ground. Seismometers record the waves so scientists can find where an earthquake happened and how big it was, and engineers design buildings to stay standing.
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City
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is the second-biggest city in the United States, spread across a wide plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Founded in 1781 as a small farming village, it grew into a world center of movies and music. About 3.9 million people lived there in 2020.
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City
New York City
New York City sits where the Hudson River meets a great harbor on the Atlantic coast. It has been the largest city in the United States since 1790. About 8.8 million people lived in its five boroughs in 2020, among skyscrapers, bridges and parks.
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City
Chicago
Chicago, in the state of Illinois, is the third-biggest city in the United States, with about 2.7 million people (2025). It grew fast beside Lake Michigan, rebuilt itself after the Great Fire of 1871 and became famous for its skyscrapers, railways, museums and music.
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City
Mexico City
Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, sits 2,240 meters high in the Valley of Mexico. It was founded in 1521 on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that stood on an island in a lake. About 9.2 million people lived there in 2020, and more than 23 million in the wider metropolitan area.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate San Francisco between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
- Explain how the Gold Rush changed a small settlement into a big port.
- Describe how earthquakes have shaped the city and how it rebuilt.
- Explain how fog forms along the coast.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- San Francisco's cable car was invented to help horses. What invention would you make to help an animal?
- After the 1906 earthquake, people camped in Golden Gate Park while the city was rebuilt. How do communities help each other after a disaster?
- Why might a city choose to keep an old kind of transport like the cable car?
Try at home or in class
- Make 'fog' in a jar: pour a little warm water in a jar, cover it with a plate of ice cubes and watch a cloud form.
- Build a suspension bridge from string, two chairs and a strip of cardboard, and test how many coins it holds.
Key vocabulary: peninsula, bay, suspension bridge, presidio, Gold Rush, earthquake, fog
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Natural Earth vector data , Natural Earth (NACIS) (Public domain)
- San Francisco , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- San Francisco: Landscape , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- San Francisco: Industry and tourism , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- San Francisco: The growth of the metropolis , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- California Gold Rush , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Presidio of San Francisco: Spanish period , National Park Service
- Presidio of San Francisco: History and culture , National Park Service
- The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake , U.S. Geological Survey
- City and town population totals: 2020-2025 (California) , U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program (Vintage 2025)
- San Francisco, California: climatological information , World Meteorological Organization, World Weather Information Service
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 27, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.