San Francisco

San Francisco is a city in the west of California. California is located on the west coast of the USA and borders to the Pacific Ocean. The population of the city is about 750.000 and in the Bay Area live about 6.000.000 people. Alcatraz, Angel, Treasure, and Yerba Buena islands are part of the city.

San Francisco has a land area of 117 sq km. The central part of the city lies on a series of hills that reach a maximum in height of about 285 m. In the north are the main commercial sections of the city and in the south are the older sections and industrial areas. The Mission Valley district, southwest of downtown, is a black neighborhood. Other major neighborhoods are Chinatown and Japan Town.

Economy

San Francisco is a leading financial and international trade center for the western United States. Here is the home office of the Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the world. Tourism is also important to the city's economy. As a leading manufacturing center, it produce textiles, fabricated metal things, electric equipment, petroleum products, chemicals, paper products and printed materials.

The harbour of San Francisco is one of the largest in the nation and its shipping activity has grown since the early 1980s. San Francisco has an international airport and major railroads and highways. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system connect the city with Oakland, Richmond, Concord, and Fremont across San Francisco Bay. Oakland is also accessible via the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, one of the longest combination bridges in the world. The famous Golden Gate Bridge joins the city with Marin County and is 2.15 km long.

Points of Interest

The downtown section of San Francisco has many attractions. Famous is the Transamerica Pyramid Building, a white pyramid office tower. Chinatown, which has one of the largest Chinese communities outside Asia; the theater district along Geary Street; and Coit Memorial Tower on Telegraph Hill.

Also downtown are Fisherman's Wharf, with the nearby Hyde Street Pier of Historic Ships and the National Maritime Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Opera House, and the Davies Symphony Hall.

The downtown district of San Francisco is also noted for its cable cars. Golden Gate Park, including a large area in the west-central part of the city that is designated to become a national park in 1944. Also in San Francisco are the Japanese Tea Gardens and Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants (baseball) and the San Francisco 49ers (football) teams.

Alcatraz is a prison island in western California, in San Francisco Bay, near San Francisco. It rises 40 m above the surface of the bay and is about 535m long. The Spanish visited the island in 1769. From 1868 to 1933, when the army transferred it to the Department of Justice, it served as a military prison. The island then served as a federal prison for dangerous prisoners until 1963; in 1972 it became part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Educational and Cultural Institutions

The main institutions of higher education in San Francisco are San Francisco State University, the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University , the University of California-San Francisco, the University of California Hastings College of Law, the San Francisco Art Institute , the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a large community college.

San Francisco has many performing-arts organizations. Among the best known are the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Ballet, the San Francisco Opera, and the American Conservatory Theatre.

History

The community was settled in 1776, when the Spanish officer Juan Bautista de Anza founded a for here. In 1848 gold was founded near Sacramento, and the following gold rush rapidly transformed San Francisco into a booming community. In 1869 the transcontinental railroad reached the Bay Area.

By 1900 San Francisco had more than 340,000 inhabitants. On April 18, 1906, an earthquake shook the city and caused a fire that raged for three days, destroying almost all of San Francisco's downtown and much of the residential area. The city was rebuilt quickly.

During World War II, San Francisco was a major shipbuilding center, and in 1945, at the end of the war, the city was the site of an international conference. In the 1960s and 1970s many large, modern buildings were constructed here. The city was again badly damaged by an earthquake in 1989.