Portal:San Francisco Bay Area

WELCOME TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA   BAY AREA CITIES   RECOGNIZED BAY AREA CONTENT

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

HL7742, the aircraft involved in the accident, seen here on July 31, 2011, two years prior to the crash landing at San Francisco International Airport
HL7742, the aircraft involved in the accident, seen here on July 31, 2011, two years prior to the crash landing at San Francisco International Airport

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight from Incheon International Airport near Seoul, South Korea, to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in the United States. On the morning of July 6, 2013, the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft operating the flight crashed on final approach into SFO. Of the 307 people aboard, two passengers died at the crash scene (one from being run over by an airport crash tender), and a third died in a hospital several days later. 181 others were injured, 12 of them critically. Among the injured were three flight attendants who were thrown onto the runway while still strapped in their seats when the tail section broke off after striking the seawall short of the runway. It was the first crash of a Boeing 777 that resulted in fatalities since its entry to service in 1995. (more...)

Selected biography

Ina Coolbrith
Ina Coolbrith

Ina Coolbrith (March 10, 1841 – February 29, 1928) was an American poet, writer, librarian, and a prominent figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary community. Called the "Sweet Singer of California", she was the first California Poet Laureate and the first poet laureate of any American state.

Coolbrith, born the niece of Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr., left the Mormon community as a child to enter her teens in Los Angeles, California, where she began to publish poetry. She terminated a youthful failed marriage to make her home in San Francisco, and met writers Bret Harte and Charles Warren Stoddard with whom she formed the "Golden Gate Trinity" closely associated with the literary journal Overland Monthly. Her poetry received positive notice from critics and established poets such as Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce and Alfred Lord Tennyson. She held literary salons at her home—in this way she introduced new writers to publishers. Coolbrith befriended the poet Joaquin Miller and helped him gain global fame. (more...)

Selected city

Sonoma is a historically significant city in Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County, California, United States, surrounding its historic town plaza, a remnant of the town's Mexican colonial past. Today, Sonoma is a center of the state's wine industry for the Sonoma Valley AVA Appellation. Sonoma's population was 10,648 as of the 2010 census, while the Sonoma urban area had a population of 32,678. (more...)

Selected image


The Bay Area by year

1885
Exterior of V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena
Exterior of V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena

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...


October - December 2007

Selected periodic event

The Susan Comstock Quintet in 2010
The Susan Comstock Quintet in 2010

The Cotati Jazz Festival is an annual free music festival held in Cotati since 1980. It typically takes place on Father's Day weekend in mid-June. (the Susan Comstock Quintet pictured)

Quote

File:Gertrude Stein by Alvin Langdon Coburn.jpg
~ Gertrude Stein, Everybody's Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1937, p. 289)

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.

Things you can do

Selected panorama

San Francisco Bay Area categories


Full category tree
Select [►] to view the full category tree.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache