San Francisco

The Yelamu, a group of the Ohlone peoples, lived on the peninsula before Europeans came. In 1776 settlers from New Spain founded the Presidio at the Golden Gate and the Mission San Francisco de Asís, known as Mission Dolores, both named after St Francis of Assisi. Under Mexican rule the trading settlement of Yerba Buena grew up from 1834 around what is now Portsmouth Square; American forces took it in 1846, and in 1847 it was renamed San Francisco.

The Gold Rush changed everything. The population jumped from about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by the end of 1849, and San Francisco became the largest city on the West Coast. Chinese immigrants built Chinatown, and the first cable cars climbed Clay Street in 1873. On 18 April 1906 a great earthquake and the fires that followed destroyed more than three-quarters of the city, including all of downtown, and left more than half its 400,000 people homeless. The city was rebuilt quickly and celebrated with the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915.

During the Second World War the city was a major port for the Pacific. Afterwards the Beat writers gathered in North Beach, hippies came to Haight-Ashbury for the Summer of Love in 1967, and in the 1970s the Castro became the heart of the gay rights movement; Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978. The demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway in 1991 reopened the downtown waterfront. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s, its collapse in 2001, and later waves of technology companies have shaped the city since.

San Francisco has long been a centre of liberal politics and of movements that spread far beyond it, from the Beat poets and the 1960s counterculture to gay rights. San Francisco Pride, held every year since 1972, is one of the largest and oldest Pride parades in the world, and the Castro remains a symbol of LGBTQ life. Chinese New Year brings one of the largest Lunar New Year parades outside Asia.

About a third of the population is Asian American, and Chinese San Franciscans form the largest single ethnic minority. Chinatown, mostly Cantonese and Taishanese-speaking, keeps its own customs, temples and family associations, while many Chinese San Franciscans also live in the Richmond and Sunset districts. The Mission is the historic heart of the Latino city, known for its murals, and North Beach keeps its Italian character.

The city's cultural institutions include SFMOMA, the de Young, the Legion of Honor, the Asian Art Museum, the San Francisco Symphony, the Ballet and the Opera. Sport means the Giants, who moved from New York in 1958 and won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and the Golden State Warriors. Bay to Breakers, a costumed footrace across the city held since 1912, and free festivals such as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park show its playful side.

About 826,000 people lived in San Francisco in 2025, and some 4.6 million in its metropolitan area. The mainland part of the city is roughly seven miles by seven, making it one of the most densely populated large cities in the country. It ranks first among large US cities by income per head, and its cost of living is exceptionally high.

The economy is built on technology, finance, tourism and medicine. Salesforce, Uber, Airbnb, Levi's and Gap have their headquarters here, as do OpenAI and Anthropic, and many venture capital firms are based in the city. The pandemic emptied many downtown offices in the early 2020s as remote work spread, and the recovery of downtown, office vacancies and tax revenue are central local debates.

Homelessness has been a visible problem since the 1980s, concentrated in the Tenderloin and around Market Street; in May 2026 Mayor Daniel Lurie reported that the city's latest Point-in-Time count showed unsheltered homelessness at its lowest level in 15 years. Daily life runs on Muni, BART, bicycles and steep walks, and more than half of residents live in rented homes. The knowledge that the San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes of 1906 and 1989 is part of life here.

San Francisco's food reflects the waves of people who came by sea. Cioppino, a tomato-based stew of Dungeness crab, clams, shrimp and fish, was developed in the late 1800s by immigrant fishermen, many from Genoa, who lived in North Beach, and can be served with local sourdough bread. Dungeness crab is still landed at Fisherman's Wharf, and the stalls there serve it with clam chowder.

Chinatown, the oldest in North America, has dim sum shops and Chinese restaurants, and Chinese food spreads across the city in the Richmond and Sunset districts. The Mission District gave its name to the Mission burrito, a large flour tortilla, usually steamed, wrapped around rice and other fillings and served in foil; it became popular in the Mission's taquerías in the 1960s, and which taquería makes the best is a subject of fierce debate.

The Tadich Grill, founded in 1849, is the oldest restaurant still running in California. Domingo Ghirardelli began making chocolate here during the Gold Rush, and the restored Ferry Building on the Embarcadero is now a marketplace of food producers.