The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth-largest city in California and the fourteenth-largest in the United States, with a 2005 population of 739,426. It is located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and has traditionally been the focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area, whose population exceeds seven million residents. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major American city after New York.

In 1776, the Spanish became the first Europeans to settle in San Francisco, which they named for St. Francis. With the advent of the California gold rush in 1848, and the Comstock Lode and silver mines in 1859, the city entered a period of rapid growth. After being devastated by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt and is today one of the most recognizable cities in the United States.

San Francisco has a unique mix of physical characteristics, including its months-long episodes of fog, its steep rolling hills, its eclectic mix of architecture (including Victorian style houses and modern highrises), and being surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. Famous hallmarks and landmarks include the San Francisco cable cars, the Transamerica Pyramid, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.

History

The Yelamu group of the Ohlone people, Native Americans, inhabited the San Francisco Peninsula from at least 8000 BCE until the early 19th century; the major villages on the land that would become San Francisco were Chutchui, Amuctac, Tubsinte, and Petlenuc. Within two generations of European contact, effects associated with the Spanish Mission system [2] [3] [4], including oppression and disease, drove the Yelamu people to extinction.

The first Europeans reliably known to visit San Francisco Bay arrived on November 2, 1769 [5]. The English sea captain and explorer Sir Francis Drake may have sailed into the Golden Gate while circumnavigating the globe in 1579, but no concrete evidence of an English landing has been found. The Spanish exploration party lead by Don Gaspar de Portolà was seeking to expand the Spanish colonial territory from the south, in opposition to the Russian expansion from the north. The first Spanish mission in the area, Mission San Francisco de Asís, was established six years later. An associated military fort was also established in what is now the Presidio, as well as a small village called Yerba Buena. Though Spain held the port until the Mexican independence, (the earliest European explorer of California Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542 had missed San Francisco entirely). Russians also coexisted near the Spaniards, having colonized the north Pacific coast as far south as Fort Ross in Sonoma County.