San Francisco Bay Area California

San Francisco Bay Area California

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean. Technically, both rivers flow into Suisun Bay, which flows through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay, which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay, although the entire group of interconnected bays is often referred to as “San Francisco Bay”.

San Francisco Bay Area tourism revolves around The City of San Francisco, itself, which you will note is its own region on our map — even though it’s only about seven miles square. San Francisco is, of course, an oft-cited “Favorite Tourist Destination,” and your Northern California vacation wouldn’t be complete without taking in at least some of what this great city has to offer. County Area Population Density Sonoma County 4,840 km2 484,364,968 110/km2 Cities: Santa Rosa. Marin County 2,140 km2 252,409 120/km2 Cities: San Rafael San Francisco 121.4 km2 837,442 6,898/km2 Cities: San Francisco  Solano County 2,350 km2 413,344 110/km2 Cities: Fairfield  Napa County 2,040 km2 138,088 68/km2 Cities: Napa Contra Costa County 2,080 km2 1,049,025 500/km2 Cities: Martinez Alameda County 2,130 km2 1,510,271 789/km2 Cities:  Oakland Alameda San Mateo County 1,930 km2 718,451 617/km2 Cities: Redwood City Santa Clara County 3,380 km2 1,781,642 530/km2 Cities: San Jose Santa Cruz County 1,570 km2 262,382 227/km2 Cities: Santa Cruz

The San Francisco Bay Area has the 2nd most Fortune 500 Companies in the United States, and is known for its natural beauty, liberal politics, entrepreneurship, and diversity. San Francisco

San Francisco Bay is located in the U.S. state of California, surrounded by a contiguous region known as the San Francisco Bay Area (often simply "the Bay Area"), dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. The waterway entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean is called Golden Gate. Across the strait spans the Golden Gate Bridge.

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas such as San Francisco-Oakland (12th largest in the country), San Jose (31st largest in the country), along with smaller urban and rural areas. Overall, the Bay Area consists of nine counties, 101 cities, and 7,000 square miles. The nine counties are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.

The United States Census Bureau considers the Bay Area a Combined Statistical Area (CSA) with approximately 7.4 million people, including the nine counties bordering San Francisco Bay as well as Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties, making it the sixth largest CSA in the United States. The Bay Area hosts many cities, towns, military bases, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a massive network of roads, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels and commuter rail. The combined urban area of San Jose and San Francisco is the 50th largest urban area in the world.

The Bay Area is anchored by three major cities. San Francisco is the cultural and financial center of the metropolitan area and Northern California and is famous for its iconic skyline, steep hills, cable cars and historic streetcars, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It has the sixth-highest population density of any city over 500,000 people in North America. The largest city in the Bay Area in terms of both land area and population is San Jose, which is located in the South Bay and is part of the world renowned technology hub known as Silicon Valley. Oakland, the third most populous city, is a central hub for the East Bay, major industrial center and contains the Port of Oakland, the fifth busiest container port in the United States. The region's northern counties encompass California's famous Wine Country, home to hundreds of vineyards and wineries while the region's Pacific Ocean coastline hosts numerous beaches.

The San Francisco Bay Area is renowned for its natural beauty, liberal politics, affluence, diversity, and new age reputation.

Alcatraz In 1934, Alcatraz became the infamous maximum security prison for members of organized crime and high-risk convicts. Famous island residents have included “Machine Gun” Kelly, Al Capone and Robert “Birdman” Stroud.