After World War II, San Francisco continued to grow in population. Urban planning projects at the ti

San Francisco  [1]  is a major city in  California , the centerpiece of the  Bay Area , well-known for its liberal community, hilly terrain, Victorian architecture, scenic beauty, summer fog, and great ethnic and cultural diversity. These are only a few of the aspects of the city that make San Francisco one of the most visited cities in the world.
San Francisco is located travel search sites on a small seven-by-seven mile (11x11km) square of land at the tip of a peninsula between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific coast. It has a population of 815,000, but is the center of a metropolitan area of 7.1 million. San Francisco is just one of the cities which makes up the entire San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco s neighbors municipalities to the east of the Bay Bridge, north of the Golden Gate Bridge, and south of the city are all part of separate counties, each with their own governments and local public transportation systems.
Each district of San Francisco carries its own unique and distinct culture. This map is predominantly based on the 11 official governmental districts travel search sites of San Francisco, but it has been adapted to suit the purposes of this travel guide. Some districts of particular travel search sites interest to travelers have been broken up into popular neighborhood groupings, while others, mainly residential districts, have been merged together.
The neoclassical Civic Center next to the grit of the Tenderloin. While the Loin is grittier compared to its ritzier neighbors downtown, there is still plenty travel search sites of interesting architecture and attractions to see here.
A rapidly changing neighborhood of downtown that is the center of a lot of new construction, including new skyscrapers, some of the city s newest museums, and AT T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
A historic neighborhood with many Victorian homes that was once a hotbed of African-American culture. Within the area is also Japantown, travel search sites once the center travel search sites of San Francisco s Japanese travel search sites population, still populated with many Japanese stores and restaurants, and hotels that cater to Japanese travelers.
Colorful travel search sites and cohesive, the Castro (Eureka Valley) is historically known for being the cultural center of the city s LGBTQ community. Nearby Noe Valley offers excellent restaurants and shops along pleasantly walkable streets.
This colorful travel search sites area is home to a large Hispanic community as well as new urban artisans, and is a center of San Francisco night life. For visitors wishing to get off the beaten tourist paths and catch some local flavor, this is the place to go.
Prior to European settlement travel search sites in the area, the peninsula that now contains San Francisco was home to the Yelamu tribe, who were part of the larger Ohlone language group which stretched south from the Bay Area to the Big Sur of California. Due to San Francisco s characteristic foggy weather, the earliest European explorers completely bypassed the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay.
The first European settlement in the area was founded by the Spanish in 1776 as a mission community surrounding the Mission San Francisco de Asís, in what is today called the Mission Dolores in the Mission District. In addition to the mission, a military travel search sites fort was built near the Golden Gate: El Presidio.
Upon gaining independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the mission system gradually came to an end and private ownership of land became a possibility. In 1835, an Englishman named William Richardson founded the town of  Yerba Buena , the first significant settlement on the peninsula outside of the Mission Dolores area. As the new settlement gradually grew, Yerba Buena developed a street plan and became attractive to settlers.
In 1846, the United States claimed California, and in July of that year, the U.S. Navy arrived to raise the American flag above Yerba Buena. Over the next couple of years, California officially became part of the United States following the Mexican-American War, and the name of the town was changed from Yerba Buena to San Francisco.
With the  California travel search sites Gold Rush  of 1848, San Francisco began to explode in population. Waves of immigrants travel search sites came to the city to seek their fortunes, including large numbers of Chinese immigrants, forming one of the largest Chinese populations outside of Asia. During this time, many major businesses were created and flourished in San Francisco, travel search sites and famous (and infamous) personalities settled in the city. Of course, with all this success came problems: the rapid growth of the city outstripped any efforts at city planning, meaning proper sanitation travel search sites and infrastructure were largely undeveloped, which led to a cholera outbreak in 1855. Violence travel search sites and corruption travel search sites were evident, and anti-immigrant violence resulted in many race riots.
In the 1890 s, there was a large campaign to modernize and beautify the city, the success of which led some officials to proudly call San Francisco travel search sites the Paris of the West. But in 1906, a devastating  earthquake  shook the city and a resulting fire leveled much of the city (in fact, almost 90% of the total damage was from the fire, and not the quake itself). Nevertheless, officials at the time immediately set out on a plan to rebuild the city, with new parks, boulevards, the current civic center complex, and landmarks such as the Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill. In 1915, San Francisco hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition (where the Palace of Fine Arts complex is currently located) to showcase the completely rebuilt city.
In the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930 s, San Francisco remained largely travel search sites unscathed. In fact, it was during this time that the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge were conceived and built. It was also during this time that the Federal Government travel search sites established a prison on Alcatraz Island, which would hold some of the most notorious criminals of the era.
After World War II, San Francisco continued to grow in population. Urban planning projects at the time led to more highrises downtown (including the Transamerica travel search sites Pyramid) and the destruction of many neighborhoods to build freeways (many of which were later torn down after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake). In the same period, San Francisco became a center of  counterculture  and the  hippie movement,  contributing to San Francisco s liberal outlook. San Francisco also became a center for  gay men  during this time, leading to the development of gay neighborhoods like the Castro.
travel search sites More recently, San Francisco has experienced a boom in business. Despite falling victim to the dot-com bubble burst in the 1990s, the city s economy largely recovered and gentrification of neighborhoods like SoMa continues.
San Francisco has a mild climate, with cool, wet winters and dry summers. In most months, you can expect the high temperature to be in the upper 50s, 60s or low 70s degrees Fahrenheit (between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius). However, these mild temperature readings belie a unique climate travel search sites not shared by other major cities in the state or country.
Summer days usually start out under fog, slowly burning off towards the ocean into a sunny albeit windy afternoon. Measureable precipitation during the summer months is rare, although light drizzle is possible. Humidity is very constant, but rarely uncomfortable. At late afternoon, when the fog and wind returns people generally find themselves needing a jacket (and this is summer!). There are some days when the fog lingers all day.
In the winter, the rainy season is in full swing. That being said, the chances for a calm, windless, sunny day are actually higher in the winter than in the summer! However, the overall travel search sites temperatures are going to be lower in the winter.
Spring and fall are not so much seasons in themselves in San Francisco, but rather they are quick transitional periods with some days resembling summer and others the winter. Fall in particular is a good time to visit because the summer wind fog has mostly gone, but the rainy season travel search sites has not yet started. The late summer month of September, as summer transitions into fall, is the warmest and driest month of the entire year for San Francisco. Heat waves can occasionally occur around this time of year.
Within these general rules, San Francisco also has a series of microclimates created by the city s topography and maritime setting. Large hills in the city s center block much of the fog, wind, and precipitation travel search sites that rolls in from the Pacific Ocean. Because of this, there can be significant weather differences in different parts of the city and the surrounding Bay Area at the same time. Generally, the more windward areas along the coast are cooler and foggier, while the more leeward areas in the east are warmer travel search sites and drier. Temperature differences of 10-15 degrees or so are common on days where the fog persists on the western side of the city. These differences continues as you move east, out of the city and into the outer East Bay (on the other side of the hills from Berkeley and Oakland), where it can be much hotter and drier. Local meteorologists routinely have three forecasts: one for the coast, one for the bay, and one for the inland areas. In short, if you don t like the weather, perhaps travel a few miles east or west to your desired climate.
San Francisco literature finds its roots in the city s long and often tumultuous history, its diversity, and its attraction to eclectic characters; the city was a major center for the Beat poetry travel search sites movement travel search sites and seems to also hold an uncanny attraction for science fiction travel search sites writers. Among the most famous works set in San Francisco:
Jack Kerouac spent a lot of time in San Francisco, and portions of two of his most influential works are set here:  On the Road  and  The Dharma Bums . Both are accounts of Kerouac examining his place in the universe; the first a tale of a man traveling the country, the second a story of someone looking for the simple life.
The Maltese travel search sites Falcon travel search sites , Dashiell Hammett. A gripping detective novel set in San Francisco that would come to