San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco—is the beating heart of Northern California: a dazzling nexus of culture, commerce, and finance, and the only city-county in the state where city and county fuse into one. Perched at the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, it sprawls across just 46.9 square miles, making it the smallest county in California—but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in energy and intensity. With a staggering density of roughly 18,451 people per square mile, San Francisco is the most tightly packed large city in the state and the second-most densely populated major city in the United States, trailing only New York City in its human dynamism. Home to an estimated 864,816 residents as of 2015, it ranks as California’s fourth-most populous city and the 13th in the nation, while the surrounding Bay Area pulses as part of the greater San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland metropolitan tapestry.

A magnet for dreamers and wanderers alike, San Francisco is famed for its cool, fog-laden summers, its steep, undulating hills, and an eclectic architectural patchwork that reflects centuries of history and creativity. Landmarks rise like icons of legend: the awe-inspiring Golden Gate Bridge, the clanging, historic cable cars, the notorious Alcatraz Island, Fisherman’s Wharf, and the vibrant, bustling Chinatown. Beyond its charm as a tourist haven, the city is a crucible of innovation, housing headquarters of five major banking institutions and a constellation of global enterprises: Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., Salesforce, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Craigslist, and more.

San Francisco wears its many titles with pride: “The City by the Bay,” “Fog City,” “San Fran,” “Frisco”—and older, poetic epithets like “The City that Knows How,” “Baghdad by the Bay,” or “The Paris of the West.” Revered worldwide, it ranks high in livability, a city that pulses with innovation, beauty, and spirit—a place where every street corner seems to whisper a story, every hill promises a view, and every foggy morning begins a new adventure.

*From Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco