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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...)

Selected article

One Rincon Hill is an upscale residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by Urban West Associates, consists of two skyscrapers that share a common townhouse podium.

One tower, One Rincon Hill North Tower, is under construction as of 2013 and will reach a height of 541 feet (165 m) with 50 stories. The other tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower, is 60 stories and stands 641 feet (195 m) tall. The South Tower contains high-speed elevators with special features for moving residents effectively, and a large water tank designed to help the skyscraper withstand strong winds and earthquakes. Both skyscrapers and the townhomes contain a total of 709 residential units.

The building site, located right next to the western approach of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, formerly contained a clock tower. The clock tower was demolished shortly after the city approved the One Rincon Hill project. Construction of the townhomes and the South Tower lasted from 2005 to 2008, but was stopped for brief periods of time due to seismic concerns and a construction accident. As the South Tower neared completion, it generated controversy concerning view encroachment, high pricing, and architectural style. (more...)

Selected biography

William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced the history of American journalism. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories featuring crime, corruption, sensation and sex, and of sometimes dubious veracity. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class. He controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence. He called for war in 1898 against Spain—as did many papers—but he did it in sensational fashion. After 1918 he called for an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932-34, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. His peak circulation reached 20 million readers a day in the mid 1930s, but he was a bad money manager and was so deeply in debt that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s; but he kept his newspapers and magazines.

His life story was the main inspiration for the ridicule of the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane. His famous mansion, Hearst Castle, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark. (more...)

Selected city

San Mateo (/ˌsæn məˈt./ SAN mə-TAY-oh; Spanish for "Saint Matthew") is a city in San Mateo County, California in the high-tech enclave of Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 97,207 as of the 2010 census, it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south, and Highlands-Baywood Park and Hillsborough to the west. San Mateo was incorporated in 1894. (more...)

Selected image

Albino American Alligator, Alligator mississippiensis at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
image credit: Mbz1


The Bay Area by year

1935
Woman with a Hat, from the SFMOMA collection
Woman with a Hat, from the SFMOMA collection
Former capitol building, Benicia
Former capitol building, Benicia
1941 trolleybus model
1941 trolleybus model

 • The San Francisco Museum of Art opens at the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center (Woman with a Hat by Matisse, from the museum collection, pictured, left)
 • Benjamin Franklin Davis, grandson of the man who helped develop Levi's jeans, opens his eponymous clothing store in San Francisco
 • Benicia Capitol State Historic Park opens at the site of California’s third capital building (pictured, right), where the California State Legislature convened from February 3, 1853 to February 24, 1854
 • San Francisco Junior College is established
 • Lucky Stores is founded in Alameda County
 • Trolleybuses (pictured, right) begin operating in San Francisco

Selected historical image

Article in The Californian on the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, the origin of the California Gold Rush
image credit: public domain

Did you know...

San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds
San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds

Previous Did you know...

 • ... that San Francisco artists and craftspeople fought the police and city hall for years to bring about a Street Artists Program that lets them legally sell their work on the city's sidewalks?
 • ... that the Mokelumne Aqueduct, originally built in 1929, is the sole water supply system for over one million people in the San Francisco Bay Area?
 • ... that the Asian clam is causing trouble in San Francisco Bay?
 • ... that the Black Sea jellyfish has become established in the estuaries of the Petaluma and Napa Rivers flowing into San Francisco Bay?
 • ... that San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim (pictured, right) plays bass guitar, and her favorite song is by the Wu-Tang Clan?
 • ... that psychedelic rock concert poster artist Gary Grimshaw was sentenced to 15 days in jail and a $150 fine for flying a 15 cent kite with a dirty word written on it?


January - March 2014

Selected periodic event

Muse at the 2011 festival
Muse at the 2011 festival

The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is a music festival held annually at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It was first held in 2008, and included over 60 musical acts from around the world, as well as several art installations, and brought in 40,000 to 60,000 attendees a day. (Muse pictured)

Quote

~ Robert Frost, A Peck of Gold (1926)

Selected multimedia file

Bay Area regions, geographic features and protected areas

WikiProject

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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Selected panorama

San Francisco at sunset
image credit: BDS2006

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