30 January 2019 | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Headquarters Building at US Naval Station Treasure Island © Bruce C. Cooper/cc-by-3.0
Treasure Island is an
artificial island in the
San Francisco Bay and a neighborhood in the city and county of San Francisco. Built 1936–37 for the 1939
Golden Gate International Exposition, the island’s
World’s Fair site is a
California Historical Landmark. Buildings there have been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places, and the historical
Naval Station Treasure Island an auxiliary air facility (for airships, blimps, dirigibles, planes and seaplanes) are designated in the
Geographic Names Information System.
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19 June 2017 | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, San Francisco Bay Area, Theme Weeks
Reading Time: 24 minutes
Market Street and Downtown from Twin Peaks © Vincent.bloch
San Francisco (Spanish for
Saint Francis) officially the
City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of
Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations. Located at the north end of the
San Francisco Peninsula, San Francisco is about 47.9 square miles (124 km²) in area, making it the smallest county—and the only consolidated city-county—within the state of
California. With a density of about 18,451 people per square mile (7,124 people per km²), San Francisco is the most densely settled large city (population greater than 200,000) in California and the
second-most densely populated major city in the United States after
New York City. San Francisco is the
fourth-most populous city in California, after
Los Angeles,
San Diego, and
San Jose, and the
13th-most populous city in the United States—with a census-estimated 2015 population of 864,816. The city and its surrounding areas are known as the
San Francisco Bay Area, and are a part of the larger
OMB-designated San
Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area, the
fifth most populous in the nation with an estimated population of 8.7 million. Several picturesque
islands—
Alcatraz,
Treasure Island and the adjacent
Yerba Buena Island, and small portions of
Alameda Island,
Red Rock Island, and
Angel Island—are part of the city. Also included are the uninhabited
Farallon Islands, 27 miles (43 km) 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 (600 km²). San Francisco was founded on June 29, 1776, when
colonists from Spain established
Presidio of San Francisco at the
Golden Gate and
Mission San Francisco de Asís named for St. Francis of Assisi a few miles away. The
California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the
West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the
1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was the port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the
Pacific Theater. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the
“hippie” counterculture, the
Sexual Revolution, the
Peace Movement growing from
opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and other factors led to the
Summer of Love and the
gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of
liberal activism in the United States. 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.
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