USGS Satellite photo of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The
Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects San Francisco with
Marin County.
The San Francisco Bay Area, referred to locally as the Bay Area, is a geographically diverse metropolitan area that surrounds San Francisco Bay in northern California. Home to more than seven million people, it is composed of cities, towns, villages, military bases, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks sprawled over nine counties and connected by a massive network of roads, highways, railroads, and commuter rail.
Because San Francisco was until recently the largest city in the region (it was surpassed by San Jose in the 1990 census) and remains the traditional and cultural center, the region is identified with the city of San Francisco proper. However, San Francisco is neither dominant within the region in population (it is home to only 11% of the Bay Area's people) nor does it form a clear urban center to the Bay Area. This differs from more typical metropolitan areas that have a single urban center surrounded by dependent suburbs. The Bay Area is atypical in that its population is distributed across several regional urban and suburban centers. Due to the distributed and diverse nature of the region, it is referred to simply as the Bay Area (without reference to any specific city) by its residents; the fully qualified name is mostly used by outsiders and in formal and legal contexts.
Ultimately, the metropolitan area comprising the city of San Francisco together with Oakland and San Jose is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, after New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.-Baltimore.
Subregions
Berkeley as seen from the Claremont Canyon reserve
Napa Valley is most famous for its
wine.
San Francisco
- Main article: San Francisco, California
The City and County of San Francisco is generally placed in a category by itself geographically, mentally, and culturally. It is separated by water from the north, west and east, and by a county line from its neighbor cities to the South. San Francisco serves as the cultural and financial center of the region, and once was the population and economic center.
East Bay
- Main article: East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
The eastern side of the bay, dominated by the city of Oakland but also including Alameda, Fremont, Livermore, Hayward and several small cities, is known locally as the East Bay. The East Bay is split into two regions, the inner East Bay, which sits on the Bay coastline, and the outer East Bay, consisting of inland valleys separated from the inner East Bay by hills and mountains.
- The inner East Bay consists of Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, Berkeley, and smaller suburbs surrounding or surrounded by these four major cities, such as Emeryville, San Leandro, and Richmond. The inner East Bay is more urban, more densely populated, has a much older building stock (built before World War II) and a more ethnically diverse population. Oakland is the region's chief seaport. The East Bay regional basketball, football, and baseball teams play from Oakland. As with many inner urban areas the Inner East Bay also features a high accumulation of crime as well as socio-economic problems. According to the FBI Uniformed Crime Reports, more than 50% of all homicides in the Bay Area in 2002 occurred within the city limits of Oakland and Richmond.
- The outer East Bay consists of the cities of Walnut Creek, Concord, and Pleasant Hill, to the north (also referred as Central Contra Costa County) and the cities of Dublin, Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville, San Ramon to the south (sometimes referred to as the Livermore-Amador Valley or the Tri-Valley), as well as other smaller towns, such as Alamo and Orinda. They are connected to the inner East Bay by BART and by highways and the Caldecott Tunnel. The outer East Bay is mostly suburban to rural and was mostly built after World War II.
South Bay
- Main article: South Bay (San Jose, California)
The communities along the southern edge of the Bay are known as the South Bay, Santa Clara Valley, and Silicon Valley, although some Peninsula and East Bay towns are sometimes included in the latter. It includes the city of San Jose, and its smaller neighbors including Gilroy and the high-tech hubs of Santa Clara, Cupertino, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, as well as many other suburbs. A booming Silicon Valley has shifted the regional population and economic center away from San Francisco and Oakland and towards the South Bay; San Jose is now the largest city in the region. The technology boom has also brought large numbers of immigrants and driven housing and rent prices to the highest in the nation.
Peninsula
- Main article: San Francisco Peninsula
The area between the South Bay and the City and County of San Francisco is known as the San Francisco Peninsula, locally just as The Peninsula. This area consists of a series of small cities and suburban communities along the Bay such as Palo Alto and Stanford University, Daly City, San Mateo, and Foster City, as well as various towns along the Pacific coast, such as Pacifica and Half Moon Bay. Because of the influence of Stanford University, lack of space, and high cost of living, Silicon Valley has been slowly creeping up the peninsula.
North Bay
- Main article: North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
The region north of the Golden Gate Bridge is known locally as the North Bay. This area consists of Marin County and extends northward into Napa, Sonoma County, California and eastward to Solano County. With some exceptions, this region is extremely affluent, and is generally the least urbanized part of the Bay Area, with many areas of undeveloped park and farm land. It is the only section of the Bay Area that is not served by a commuter rail transit service, though Sonoma-Marin service has entered the planning phase. The lack of transportation services is mainly because the lack of population mass in the North Bay, and the fact that it is separated completely from the rest of the Bay Area by water, the only access points being the Golden Gate Bridge leading to San Francisco, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and Carquinez Bridge, leading to Richmond, and the Benicia Bridge, leading to Concord. There are currently no rail transportation links spanning any of these bridges, except for an AMTRAK bridge adjacent to the Benicia Bridge.
Santa Cruz
- Main article: Santa Cruz, California
The classification of Santa Cruz is disputed. Most residents do not consider Santa Cruz to be part of the San Francisco Bay Area; however, there is no formal definition of "San Francisco Bay Area" (such as by the US Census Bureau), so the term is somewhat flexible. Some tourist guide books (Lonely Planet) group Santa Cruz in the San Francisco Bay Area section, while others (Eyewitness Travel Guides) do not. More importantly, residents of the Santa Cruz Mountains (Boulder Creek, Brookdale, Ben Lomond, Felton, Scotts Valley) and Santa Cruz proper do not usually consider themselves to be residents of the Bay Area, rather just Northern California. Santa Cruz can also be considered a part of the Monterey Bay instead since the city lies on the North end of the Monterey Bay.
Affluence
The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the wealthiest regions in the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, of the 280 defined metropolitan areas, the San Francisco Bay Area has the highest median household income in the nation with $62,024. Six of the top ten California places with the highest per capita income are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Belvedere, Atherton, Woodside, Portola Valley, Diablo). Of the 100 highest income counties by per capita income in the United States, six are in the San Francisco Bay Area (Marin, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Alameda). According to Forbes Magazine, published in 2005, 12 of the top 50 most expensive Zip Codes are in the Bay Area (Atherton, Ross, Diablo, Tiburon, Los Altos, Nicasio, Portola Valley, Los Altos, Los Gatos, San Francisco).
Weather
Because the hills, mountains, and large bodies of water produce such vast geographic diversity within this region, the Bay Area offers a significant variety of microclimates. The areas near the Pacific Ocean are generally characterized by relatively small temperature variations during the year, with cool foggy summers and mild rainy winters. Inland areas, especially those separated from the ocean by hills or mountains, have hotter summers and colder overnight temperatures during the winter. Most of the major residential areas never experience snow (the last noticeable snowfall at the sea level regions occurred on February 5, 1976), while the highest of the surrounding peaks are dusted with snow half a dozen times each winter (including Mount St. Helena, Mount Hamilton, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais). The coast north of San Francisco, where year-round cool, moist conditions enable redwoods to grow, has almost nothing in common with Livermore, just 40 miles inland across the bay, which has desert-like precipitation and heat. At the south end of the Bay, San Jose averages fewer than 15 inches of rain annually, while Napa at the north end of the Bay averages over 30.
Skyline Boulevard stretches through the Santa Cruz Mountains, here near Palo Alto, California. During winter and spring, the hills surrounding the Bay Area are lush and green
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Rain is extremely rare in the Bay Area during the summer months. As a result, the surrounding hills quickly become dry.
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Transportation
- Main article: Transportation in the San Francisco Bay Area
The Bay Area is served by many public transportation systems, including three international airports (SFO, OAK, SJC), six overlapping bus transit agencies, four rapid transit and regional rail systems including BART, and multiple public ferry services.
The freeway and highway system is very extensive; however, many freeways are heavily congested during rush hour, especially the trans-bay bridges.
Higher education
The region is home to several universities and seminaries, most notably the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. Most studies rank the San Francisco Bay Area population at or near the top in the Nation for overall education level. (The other two candidates would be Greater Boston and Washington D.C.)
- Public
- Seminaries
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The University of California, Berkeley is consistently ranked the top public university in the United States.
Stanford University owns 8,180 acres (32 km²), making it the second-largest university campus in the world.
- Private
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Religious Life
The San Francisco Bay Area has a very diverse religious life with thousands of churches, mosques, temples, and religious centers. The Bay Area is home to Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Shiite-Muslim, Sunni-Muslim, and numerous other religious communities.
Sports
Regional counties, cities and suburbs
The following lists are based on the ten-county definition of the Bay Area. Cities in bold serve as county seat. Those places listed in italics would be excluded by the nine-county definition that excludes Santa Cruz County.
Counties
Cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants
Cities with 100,000 to 500,000 inhabitants
Suburbs with 10,000 to 100,000 inhabitants
Suburbs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants
See also
External links
