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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

A cable tower of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge is the fictional location of Skinner's room.
A cable tower of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge is the fictional location of Skinner's room.
"Skinner's Room" is a short story by William Gibson originally composed for Visionary San Francisco, a 1990 museum exhibition exploring the future of San Francisco. It features the first appearance in Gibson's fiction of "the Bridge", which Gibson revisited as the setting of his acclaimed Bridge trilogy of novels. In the story, the Bridge is overrun by squatters, among them Skinner, who occupies a shack atop a bridgetower. An altered version of the story was published in Omni magazine and subsequently anthologized. "Skinner's Room" was nominated for the 1992 Locus Award for Best Short Story. (more...)

Selected biography

George Edward Crothers (May 27, 1870 – May 16, 1957) was one of the first students at Stanford University and was instrumental in putting the university on a solid legal and financial footing following the deaths of its founders, Leland and Jane Stanford. He served as a member of Stanford's board of trustees and as a California superior court judge. His monetary gifts to his alma mater made possible the construction of two student residences on the Stanford campus—one named for himself, the other dedicated to the memory of his mother. (more...)

Selected city

Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about 14 miles (23 km) north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. The population was 13,903 at the 2010 census.

Mill Valley is located on the western and northern shores of Richardson Bay. Beyond the flat coastal area and marshlands, it occupies narrow wooded canyons, mostly of second-growth redwoods, on the southern slopes of Mount Tamalpais. The Mill Valley 94941 ZIP code also includes the following adjacent unincorporated communities: Almonte, Alto, Homestead Valley, Strawberry and Tamalpais Valley. The Muir Woods National Monument is also located just outside the city limits. (more...)

Selected image

Fog over the Bay Area. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired this view of fog encroaching on the city on August 16, 2012. The fog is part of the marine layer, a mass of cool, dense air from the sea that was sandwiched beneath a layer of warmer air as part of a temperature inversion. Fog is often present in the lower part of the marine layer, whereas wispy stratus clouds form in the upper part.
image credit: NASA


The Bay Area by year

1968
Computer mouse, based on Englebart's demo
Computer mouse, based on Englebart's demo
Lawrence Hall of Science
Lawrence Hall of Science

Selected historical image

"Marine Corps tanks-ready for the front lines-are swung aboard a barge at the Naval Supply Center by crane, for transhipment to our forces in the Pacific Far Eastern Command. Oakland, California, 1950. Acme."

Did you know...

San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds
San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds

Previous Did you know...

Selden Connor Gile in his twenties
Selden Connor Gile in his twenties
The aircraft after the crash
The aircraft after the crash
John W. Dwinelle
John W. Dwinelle

 • ... that Asiana Airlines Flight 214 (pictured, right) was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight from Incheon International Airport, South Korea, that crashed while attempting a landing at its destination, San Francisco International Airport, on July 6, 2013?
 • ... that the South San Francisco Hillside Sign (pictured, right) was created in the 1920s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places?
 • ... that A Boy and His Atom was made by moving carbon monoxide molecules viewed through a scanning tunneling microscope, magnifying them 100 million times?
 • ... that John Mason 'Jack’ Harker was a member of the original team that developed the first disk storage system?
 • ... that Selden Connor Gile (pictured, left) was the founder and leader of the Society of Six, a Bay Area group of artists known for their plein-air paintings?
 • ... that John W. Dwinelle (pictured, right) helped establish the University of California, the right of black children to attend public school, and San Francisco's claim to much of the land within its borders?

July 2013

Selected periodic event

San Francisco Boys Chorus, past performers at the festival
San Francisco Boys Chorus, past performers at the festival

Midsummer Mozart Festival is an annual music festival that exclusively features the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The festival was founded by George Cleve in 1974 and is held at various venues across the San Francisco Bay Area. (The San Francisco Boys Chorus, past performers, pictured)

Quote

~ Billy Graham

Selected multimedia file

Rattlesnakes, Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, Portola Valley, San Mateo County
credit: Dawn Endico

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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