ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO

One of America’s most beautiful cities, and one whose locals are not afraid to harp on such a claim, especially when designing tourist brochures, SAN FRANCISCO sits poised on the 47-square-mile fingertip of a peninsula at the western edge of America – the perfect location for a place that considers itself the last stronghold of civilization in California’s lunatic fringe.
Indeed, the city has much to gloat about, not least the breathtaking natural beauty that surrounds it – from rugged coastline and tranquil bay waters to rambling, fog-capped hills and dense, unspoiled woods. Along the steep streets of the city itself, sit a cluster of distinct neighborhoods – by turn quaint or hip, lined by rows of preserved Victorian houses or dotted with chic clubs in converted warehouses.

From its earliest days as a stop on the Spanish chain of Missions, through its explosive expansion during the Gold Rush and right up into the present-day Internet boom, San Francisco’s turbulent history is relatively short. Named for Saint Francis of Assisi, the kindly monk who harbored society’s outcasts, the city sprang up almost overnight in the late 1840s from a sleepy fishing village named Yerba Buena.

The hilly terrain did not daunt the rough-and-ready prospectors who built on it according to a grid pattern that ignored even the steepest inclines; with its whimsical architecture, its vast irrigated park on the site of a former sand dune, and its cliff-hugging resort buildings, the late nineteenth-century city defied the elements and served as much as a playground as an economic center, luring writers, architects, immigrants, and thousands of transient sailors eager to “make it” in the newest, westernmost, metropolis.

To view a specific neighborhood, click on any area and it will take you to an information page about that specific area!