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Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

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The San Francisco Bay Area Portal

California Bay Area county map
California Bay Area county map

The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses the major cities and metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, along with smaller urban and rural areas. The Bay Area's nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Home to approximately 7.68 million people, the nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, and commuter rail. The combined statistical area of the region is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 43rd-largest urban area in the world with 8.80 million people.

The Bay Area has the second-most Fortune 500 companies in the United States, after the New York metropolitan area, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. The area ranks second in highest density of college graduates, after the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and performs above the state median household income in the 2010 census; it includes the five highest California counties by per capita income and two of the top 25 wealthiest counties in the United States. Based on a 2013 population report from the California Department of Finance, the Bay Area is the only region in California where the rate of people migrating in from other areas in the United States is greater than the rate of those leaving the region, led by Alameda and Contra Costa counties. (more...)

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The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former military base on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It had been a fortified location since September 17, 1776, when New Spain established it to gain a foothold on Alta California and the San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico, which in turn passed it to the United States in 1848. As part of a 1989 military reduction program under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, Congress voted to end the Presidio's status as an active military installation of the U.S. Army. On October 1, 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use.

In 1996, the United States Congress created the Presidio Trust to oversee and manage the interior 80% of the park's lands, with the National Park Service managing the coastal 20%. In a first-of-its-kind structure, Congress mandated that the Presidio Trust make the Presidio financially self-sufficient by 2013, which it achieved 8 years ahead of the scheduled deadline.

The park is characterized by many wooded areas, hills, and scenic vistas overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was recognized as a California Historical Landmark in 1933 and as a National Historic Landmark in 1962. (more...)

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George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and entrepreneur. He founded San Francisco-based Lucasfilm and led the company as chairman and chief executive before selling it to The Walt Disney Company on October 30, 2012. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist adventurer character Indiana Jones. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. (more...)

Selected city

Emeryville is a small city in Alameda County, California, in the United States. It is located in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, extending to the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley has been a catalyst for recent economic growth. It is home to Pixar Animation Studios, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Jamba Juice and Clif Bar. In addition, several well known biotech and software companies have made their home in Emeryville: Electronic Arts' Maxis Software division, LeapFrog, Sendmail, MobiTV, Novartis (formerly Chiron before April 2006), and BigFix (now IBM). The population was 10,080 as of 2010, although it swells considerably on weekdays due to the city's position as a regional employment center. Emeryville has some features of an edge city; however, it is located within the inner urban core of the Oakland/greater East Bay and was heavily industrialized before the First World War. (more...)

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The Bay Area by year

1984
Geraldine Ferraro, with Bob Matsui, Norman Mineta and Tom Hsieh
Geraldine Ferraro, with Bob Matsui, Norman Mineta and Tom Hsieh
NUMMI Plant
NUMMI Plant

Selected historical image

"California volunteers saying good-bye, on the wharf at San Francisco, before embarking." From Harper's Pictorial History of the War with Spain, 1898
image credit: J.A. Cahill

Did you know...

San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds
San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds

Previous Did you know...

Gladys Kathleen Parkin
Gladys Kathleen Parkin
Marcia Falk
Marcia Falk

 • ... that Gladys Kathleen Parkin (pictured, left) was the first woman in California to obtain a first-class government-issued radio license?
 • ... that United States v. Ju Toy was brought to the US Supreme Court when Ju Toy, an American-born person of Chinese ancestry, visited China, then returned to San Francisco, but was denied permission to land and was ordered to be deported by immigration officials?
 • ... that Jewish studies professor Marcia Falk (pictured, right) published The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible, a verse translation of the biblical Song of Songs, in 1977?
 • ... that the historical novel One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia, chronicles a fictional visit by three sisters to Oakland in 1968, and their encounter with the Black Panther Party?
 • ... that Livermore's Carnegie Library started with just 250 books?

December 2014

Selected periodic event

Arturo Sandoval at the White House
Arturo Sandoval at the White House

The Festival del Sole is an annual ten-day jazz and classical music, food, wine, and art festival held in Napa Valley. Founded in 2006 by Richard Walker and Barrett Wissman, the festival attracts over 8,000 attendees annually. Performers at the festival have included Monica Mancini, Pinchas Zukerman, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Arturo Sandoval (pictured, at a White House performance).

Quote

~ "San Francisco", lyrics by Gus Kahn, from the 1936 film San Francisco
*more quotes about San Francisco from Wikiquote

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Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas

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You are invited to participate in the San Francisco Bay Area task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the San Francisco Bay Area.

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